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Is Tonal's AI-powered home gym worth the cost? I tried it to find out

Tonal brings smart strength-training programs home—for a price

Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar

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  • Tonal is a connected smart mirror that features strength training workouts, thanks to its resistance cables that let you lift up to 200 pounds.
  • Every session our tester took with Tonal was fun, challenging, and kept the tester coming back for more.
  • It’s difficult to truly watch yourself in Tonal’s reflection compared to other, more reflective workout mirrors.


When building your home gym, you may consider the usual suspects—an exercise bike, a treadmill, a pair of dumbbells. But if you want to get creative with your workouts and focus on building strength, take your training to the next level by investing in Tonal, a smart workout mirror with digital weights—and, of course, with a hefty price tag.

Tonal lets you take a variety of classes such as dance cardio, HIIT, pilates, and yoga, but its real advantage is its resistance cable system for adding strength training to your home workouts. The total first-year cost between the machine, accessories, and membership clocks in at just over $4,000. For that kind of money, it has to be a great product—right? We tested it to find out.

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What is Tonal?

Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar

Tonal's screen allows you to browse through and select different workouts.

Tonal is a Peloton-esque workout mirror that features strength training workouts, thanks to its resistance cables that let you lift up to 200 pounds.

The wifi-enabled Tonal home gym is about the size of a wall mirror but with the thickness of a flatscreen TV. It looks something like The Mirror and streams workouts directly on its screen, but it's less reflective and has movable arms and handles.

When paired with its accessories, including a “smart” bar, handles, and a rope, the Tonal gym system allows you to do much of what you'd usually do in a gym's weight room—bench presses, rows, lat pulldowns, deadlifts, and so on—with a single machine.

Tonal uses AI to identify which weight is best for you for each exercise and automatically adjust the weight in real time as you go through a workout. Tonal challenges you to complete a certain number of reps at the weight it has prescribed you, and as you get stronger over time, the device increases your weight for each exercise.

Like most things, Tonal has a learning curve. You adjust the arms alongside the screen and clip the smart handles, bar, and rope in and out depending on the workout. This can be a little confusing at first, but grows routine after a few tries. As with most cable machines, the weights have an inherent instability—particularly when using the long bar—so they can feel heavier than they really are.

What classes does Tonal offer?

The main attraction of Tonal is its strength training programming, as its resistance cables allow you to lift much heavier compared to other workout mirrors. But for days when you don’t feel like lifting heavy, Tonal offers classes that don’t utilize the cable arms such as dance cardio, yoga, pilates, and mobility. Tonal also offers meditation sessions for your rest days when you want to take a moment and work out your mind.

Tonal offers live and on-demand classes, as well as multi-week workout programs that include strength training, cardio, yoga, partner exercises, and more, all of which are led on the screen by a rotating cast of trainers. You can pair it with your phone to play music, or connect to one of Tonal’s music channels, which have options like pop and hip-hop.

How much does Tonal cost?

A woman doing chest flys with the Tonal workout mirror.
Credit: Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser

For an all-in-one strength training system, Tonal is the way to go.

That price starts at $3,995, plus tax; plus delivery and professional installation ($295); plus the “Smart Accessories”—the bar, handles, rope, bench, foam roller and workout mat that you need to do a lot of the exercises—($495); plus a monthly membership fee ($49), which adds up to a (very) grand total of about $4,900 for the first year. There's also a financing plan for about $80 a month for 48 months not including membership fees—on par with the high-end gym membership it’s designed to replace.

What we like about Tonal

A woman selecting a workout on Tonal's touchscreen.
Credit: Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser

Tonal has a wide selection of workout classes ranging from dance cardio to pilates to HIIT.

The AI-powered technology helps you improve with every session

Tonal has you take an introductory class which shows you how to move the arms of the machine and assesses your strength level by having you perform some basic movements like a bench press and deadlift. Tonal senses when you’re lifting with ease or difficulty, and automatically adjusts the weight. You also select a goal—for example, “get stronger” or “boost energy”—and Tonal suggests classes and multi-session programs for you to try.

You don’t need to continue taking strength assessments after your initial session. Tonal measures your output during class and continuously updates the recommended load. And if you feel the suggested weight is too heavy or light, it’s easy to alter the load during class with a tap of the screen.

I felt Tonal’s initial strength assessment was spot-on, and week after week, I was slowly but surely lifting more weight and getting stronger. Tonal will also give you feedback on your form, like if you're moving too quickly or not extending fully, which I found to be a helpful feature.

Our former health and fitness editor Sara Hendricks agreed, in her initial review of Tonal. “In almost all cases, it was smarter than I am,” she wrote. “Sometimes I had to adjust the weight a pound or two, but in most of its workouts, it was spot-on. In fact, a few times, I was assigned a seemingly low weight that I scoffed at, deciding I would be fine bumping it up a little. But by the halfway point in the set, I'd realize that, yes, for the reps required, I needed the lighter weight originally assigned to me.”

The instruction is top-notch

Every session I took with Tonal was fun and challenging—they kept me coming back for more. I took mainly strength training classes, to take advantage of Tonal’s unique resistance system, and I left each session thoroughly fatigued. Each workout was varied enough that I never found them repetitive or got bored with my options.

Tonal keeps you motivated with its optional leaderboard that records how many hours you’ve spent exercising, and during live classes you can participate in the “social zone” which lets you virtually congratulate other members during your workout. And while your coach won’t be able to see you during live classes—the camera isn’t used—they can see your workout progress and cheer you on.

The detailed form cues from instructors helped me progress and stay safe during my workouts—it’s almost as good as working with a personal trainer. Tonal’s instructors are upbeat and motivational and give excellent direction to keep you on track. For example, I was told to “stand tall and picture a glass of water on my head” to stay balanced, and that mental picture really helped me nail my movement. The instructors helped me feel prepared for the workout and confident in my abilities, and made me look forward to class.

The workouts are very customizable

Of the workout mirrors we tested, Tonal has the most customizable options in your workouts. Tonal lets you set the music channel you want to listen to fromstations like “2000s,” “hip hop,” and “top hits”. You can also fast-forward and rewind the instruction in 10-second increments, and skip entire movements if you desire.

You can also create your own custom workouts. You won’t have an instructor leading you through class, but you can select what movements you want to do, how many reps and sets you want to include, and break the movements into “blocks” (e.g., you would finish all your sets of lunges and squats in block one before moving on to your sets of bicep curls and bench presses in the second block).

What we don’t like about Tonal

Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar

You adjust the machine's handles based on the exercise you're doing.

Its screen isn’t as reflective as others

It’s difficult to truly watch yourself in Tonal’s reflection compared to other, more reflective workout mirrors. Thanks to Tonal’s excellent instructors and AI-powered feedback, I didn’t find this to be too much of a hassle. I felt prepared for each movement just by listening to instructors and didn’t worry about poor form too much. However, true beginners may struggle and find that Tonal’s instruction can’t quite make up for in-person training, and want a reflective surface to watch themselves in.

It isn’t rental- or small space-friendly

Tonal must be bolted to the wall, and while it can be removed with effort, I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who rents or moves frequently, because heavy, semi-permanent fixtures tend not to mix well with lease agreements and moving trucks.

Additionally, the Tonal requires 7 feet of space around the machine for users to fully extend and use the arms of the machine for various movements. That means a 14-foot chunk of wall space and 7 feet of depth is required. Though the machine has a fairly small footprint, you end up using more space than you might imagine.

Is Tonal worth it?

Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar

Is the machine worth the cost? It depends on a few things, but mostly on your budget.

From the perspective of making strength training accessible and fun, Tonal is excellent, and arguably the most robust at-home system for total fitness that you can get. Most of its competitors—like Peloton and Mirror—focus more on cardio or body-weight training, and many don’t involve weights unless you buy them separately.

Tonal combines top-notch instruction with up to 200 pounds of resistance in a compact package that’s mostly unobtrusive in the home, making it the best option for those who enjoy strength training, but not the daily trek to the gym.

Though you can get a great workout with Tonal, beginners may lean toward a typical reflective workout mirror to keep an eye on their form. Additionally, Tonal may not be suitable for those who rent, as it must be installed on the wall, nor those who don’t have ample floor space.

That said, the workouts are great, especially if you enjoy strength training. If you feel the price is in your budget, and you know you'll use it, Tonal may be worth it for you.

Buy now at Tonal

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