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American fitness giant to revolutionize indoor cycling with Schwinn1 powered by Motosumo
Danish tech company Motosumo and American fitness giant Core Health & Fitness have just signed a strategic partnership that is expected to revolutionize the area of indoor cycling. This will be achieved by combining market-leading Schwinn bikes with an innovative app and technology that utilizes modern smartphones to convert standard indoor bikes into state-of-the-art bikes.
Copenhagen/Vancouver, Sept 13, 2018 – Motosumo, based in Copenhagen, Denmark, has just entered into a strategic partnership with American Core Health & Fitness that designs, manufactures and markets multiple lines of Schwinn bikes for health clubs across the globe. Together, the two parties are determined to revolutionize the training experience for thousands of indoor cycling riders that train on Schwinn bikes, one of the world’s three largest brands in the industry.
With the launch of Schwinn1 powered by Motosumo, a single app becomes the one place for everyone. Whether you’re a gym owner, a group X instructor, a club chain owner, or a gym member, Schwinn1 is where you go for all your connected fitness solutions; leaderboard, group class management, games with friends and workout history. And the best part… you don’t need any more hardware than the one piece of hardware you already own and are carrying… your smartphone.
Motosumo builds on Danish technology, and the secret behind the company is an advanced biomechanical model, which in combination with the motion sensors in a modern smartphone, can tell just about anything about the rider’s pace, calorie consumption, cadence and riding style. Normally, this kind of information is only found on advanced bikes but Motosumo’s app and technology works on even standard bikes with no form of built-in technology. In addition, the app also connects to Schwinn’s recently launched Bluetooth-enabled ACPower and SCPower bikes, utilizing their accurate measurements, giving both type of bikes a unique connectivity and gamification layer on top.
In addition to the data about the users’ training sessions, the gamification element delivers entirely new possibilities for Schwinn users and instructors. For instance, users can connect with other riders and instructors, and riders can compete with teams in other health clubs around the world. The app also gives instructors a vast array of possibilities to create a unique class environment and share real-time data and instructions with their class members. The social gamification element is unique to Motosumo on a global level as the smartphone functions as the connecting link, regardless of bike or gym. This used to require a heavy investment in expensive sensors, receivers, monitors and computers, but Schwinn1 powered by Motosumo now offers a shortcut to a unique social community across one or more indoor cycling teams. In this way, the tailor-made integration between Motosumo and Schwinn secures ease of use for members, instructors, and operators.
The strategic partnership between Motosumo and Core Health & Fitness furthermore adds an extra significant advantage for health clubs: Motosumo’s technology and app will be adapted to work perfectly on the Schwinn bikes thereby adding an extra layer of technology on top of both standard and high-end bikes. For an operator with both old and new bikes, this means that all the bikes in the club simultaneously get a technology upgrade. This increases the attractiveness of the clubs when it comes to indoor cycling without any investments in hardware. Another important part of the strategic partnership is that every year, Schwinn educates over 10,000 instructors and, moving forward, these instructors will also be trained in how to use Schwinn1 powered by the Motosumo app. Thereby, a dedicated instructor community is gradually developing which, due to the instructors’ ability to use the app as a resource on everything from measurement-based training to communication and drills, is expected to pave the way for the technology in clubs all around the world.
“Motosumo has developed a technology and an app that is unique on a global level. It is easy to use, requires nothing from the clubs to integrate and it brings all Schwinn bikes up to a totally new level of innovation. At the same time, Motosumo adds an entirely new layer of technology and gamification to our most advanced bikes. In this way, Schwinn and Motosumo are disrupting the industry, and we go from being purely hardware-driven to now also offering many more possibilities and user-experiences with this software solution. We’re the first to step into this digital transformation where everything is centered around the users’ smartphones, and we expect a lot from it” says Dustin Grosz, President & COO of Core Health & Fitness that equips approximately 1,000 health clubs with more than 25,000 Schwinn bikes every year.
The contract covers Motosumo software licenses for the 1,000 new clubs per year purchasing Schwinn bikes, and in addition, another 10,000 health clubs around the world with Schwinn bikes already in place will also gain access to the software for three months at zero cost, with subscription options afterwards.
The Danish venture capital fund Promentum Equity Partners has already invested in Motosumo, which is also owned by two international business moguls from the fitness industry as well as Danish PreSeed Ventures, one of the largest Danish innovation incubators.
“By launching Schwinn1 powered by Motosumo, we add a technology layer on top of the existing training experience, which contains endless possibilities for the users, instructors, and the clubs. In itself, this is a leap forward for indoor cycling, but I expect even more in the coming years. The next year will be characterized by rapid innovation, developing both hardware and software within the partnership, utilizing the vast instructor knowledge within Core, to bring a completely new and versatile indoor cycling experience. The fact that we’ve reached this point is due to an intense team effort and of course, the entire company is thrilled about the collaboration with Core,” says Kresten Juel Jensen, CEO of Motosumo.
Motosumo’s app and technology run on the regular mobile network, which makes the set-up for the individual user extremely straightforward and easy. The users simply place their phone in a fixture on the bike, and as soon as the health club has signed up, the app itself figures out what team they are on. The motion sensors in the app automatically register data about the training session based on the measured vibrations in the handlebars, which makes it possible to add an advanced digital analytical layer on top of a standard bike with no built-in technology. The app has already been developed for other team sports like HIIT, dance, functional training and even gym classes at school.