The propaganda is "Exclusive sports coach anytime, anywhere" Is
buying a smart fitness mirror a "IQ tax"?
Since the first half of this year, the smart fitness mirror has become a popular product in the fitness industry.
Many brands followed up to launch products and entered the home smart fitness track one after another. Some leading companies also attracted the favor of capital.
However, many netizens think that spending a few thousand yuan to buy a player that can be used as a mirror seems to be paying an "IQ tax."
Is the smart fitness mirror really "smart"
Would you pay for a full-length mirror with a price tag of several thousand yuan?
Since the beginning of this year, the smart fitness mirror has emerged in the market. Its biggest selling point is to claim that it is an "exclusive sports coach anytime, anywhere". Compared with the gym, it is a one-time investment and can be exercised at any time at any time, fragmenting the exercise time. .
So, is it really as smart as claimed?
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily visited a well-known brand of this type of product, FITURE, located in an offline store of China World Trade Center, and experienced a fitness mirror exercise.
To use the fitness mirror, you need the mobile phone "help": you need to log in to the member account in the App, select the course, and click to play.
Then, the coach will appear in the mirror.
The fitness mirror has its own audio, and the instructor in the mirror will also encourage the user and prompt actions. When doing certain actions that require counting or keeping time, the mirror will also help count or time.
"Can fitness software guide you right or wrong? Can you drag the progress bar?" According to the introduction of the on-site staff, the biggest selling point of the fitness mirror lies in the AI human-computer interaction, which can realize multiple functions such as action correction and rhythm adjustment. .
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily found that this interactive function does not seem to be as intelligent as people's cognition.
Since there is no screen touch function, in addition to selecting courses and pauses, you must use your mobile phone. The AI error correction function, one of the highlights of the product, also has some inconveniences.
This function can indeed recognize the user's actions through the AI smart sensor, find the action error in the first time and display the error correction reminder.
However, because the AI error correction function only has a screen pop-up and no voice reminder function, users cannot make corrections in the first time because they fail to notice the words on the mirror in time or cannot look at the mirror due to actions.
For fitness mirrors, some social media bloggers also published their own evaluations.
A fitness blogger with nearly 500,000 fans recognized the practicality of smart fitness mirrors for fitness novices, but also bluntly said that the courses and functions of such products are too basic compared to gyms.
Some bloggers believe that this type of product still has not been able to solve the problem of users' continuity and enthusiasm for fitness at home.
Some netizens said frankly that a fitness mirror is a fitness course that puts an App on a large screen. No matter which one you buy, it is much cheaper than buying a fitness mirror. Netizens think that a fitness mirror is an "IQ tax."
Capital is optimistic about the new field of fitness mirrors
At present, the smart fitness mirror on the market has dozens of products from more than a dozen brands such as FITURE, Leke, Xiaoqiao Sports, Yijian, YUPP, and the price ranges from more than 2,000 yuan to more than 9,000 yuan.
According to Fatball data, in the Weiya live broadcast room during the 6.18 period, 1484 pieces of FITURE fitness mirrors were sold on the same day, with a total sales volume of 4.763 million yuan.
During the e-commerce promotion period, FITURE Magic Mirror sold more than 3,000 units of its omni-channel products in a single day.
The smart fitness mirror category performed very well on the Tmall e-commerce platform during June 18th, and the overall transaction volume has reached the top 5 level of the large machinery industry.
According to data from Tianyan Check, according to incomplete statistics, 10 companies in this field have generated more than 20 financings, with financing amounts ranging from millions to hundreds of millions of yuan.
In fact, FITURE received a US$6 million angel round of financing from Sequoia China within only five months of its establishment.
In April of this year, FITURE announced the completion of a US$300 million Series B financing.
In addition, there is news that more brands will enter this market.
Fitness mirror market enters "cooling off period"
Just when capital and big factories got together and entered the game, the market entered a "cooling-off period."
Compared with the previous hot sales, the recent market reaction of fitness mirrors is somewhat "calm".
After the big promotion, the record of 3,000 sets of Magic Mirror sold every day seems to be a thing of the past.
Sort by sales on the e-commerce platform. Searching for the smart fitness mirror shows that the FITURE magic mirror flagship version ranks first, with a monthly sales of 200+; brands such as mirror and yupp are second, with a monthly sales of 100+, while domestic Yijian, a well-known fitness equipment brand, has a monthly sales volume of only 14.
Offline physical stores seem to be facing the dilemma of "debut is the peak".
In this regard, some people in the industry believe that smart fitness mirrors are still in the market "incubation period", product costs cannot be reduced, and high prices are still one of the main barriers preventing fitness mirrors from opening up the market.
In addition to the price, product awareness is still one of the main challenges that hinder fitness mirrors from further opening up the market.
Many consumers also have doubts about the product functions of fitness mirrors, especially the AI recognition technology, which is one of the selling points of the product. Not all courses cover this function, and the accuracy of recognition needs to be improved.
“However, the current home fitness is becoming an important sports scene. According to the "2021 China Sports and Fitness Industry Report" statistics, in 2021, the growth rate of consumer spending on smart home fitness equipment hit a new high in the past three years, reaching 32.9%. The home fitness market is vast. Yes, but whether the market space must be left to fitness mirror companies has yet to be further verified." The industry believes that the currently just-starting fitness mirror industry needs more new gameplay and new features to stimulate purchases and deepen user stickiness.
Text / reporter Zhang Xin, intern reporter Zhao Sijia
Coordinator/Yu Meiying