When it comes to exercise, it doesn't get much better than being on a rowboat, feeling the wind on your skin, seeing the sparkle of the sun on the water, and hearing the ebb and flow of the waves as you paddle freely.
No indoor workout can replicate that, but the Ergatta isn't not your average rowing machine.
Featuring a handsome cherry wood frame and a clear water tank, it's easily the best-looking model on the market.
And with a 17.3-inch touch screen on which you can browse and play gaming-inspired workouts that are personalized for your fitness level, the Ergatta is as smart as it is attractive, with a premium price to match: $2,199 plus a monthly membership fee.
If rowing is your primary form of exercise and you're looking for a machine that will complement (or even enhance) your home decor, the Ergatta is worth a look.
If you're new to rowing, however, be aware that it currently offers almost no instructional rowing content, and no trainer-led rows or mat-based workouts, features you'll find on competing machines.
It might not look as nice as the Ergatta, but the NordicTrack RW900 has a larger screen, gives you access to a vast and varied selection of iFit workouts on and off the machine, features excellent trainers who will teach you how to row if you're a beginner, and costs less, retaining our Editors' Choice for smart rowing machines.
Price and Setup
Manufactured in the US by WaterRower, a respected name in the indoor rowing machine market, the Ergatta costs $2,199, plus $199 for shipping and installation.
To make the price more manageable, you can finance it starting around $102 per month for 24 months.
As is customary for smart workout machines, you have to pay extra for a class membership.
The $29 monthly (or $290 yearly) Ergatta membership gives you access to the company's game-based fitness platform, which includes a library of "hundreds" of workouts, goal-based training programs, personal dashboards, competitions, and monthly challenges.
With the membership, you can create an unlimited number of profiles on your machine, so everyone in your household can have their own account that is calibrated to them (more on the calibration process in a bit).
There's plenty of content to keep you busy, and Ergatta says it's adding more than five new workouts each week.
For comparison, the Hydrow, which features a larger 22-inch touch screen, costs $2,199, plus $38 monthly for a membership, and comes with free standard delivery.
The RW900, which also sports a 22-inch touch screen, costs $1,699, plus $199 for delivery, and comes with a free one-year premium iFit class membership, making it the most affordable of the bunch. Unlike these machines, the Ergatta doesn't feature instructor-led classes, live rows, or mat-based workouts to supplement your rowing.
While Hydrow and NordicTrack have suspended their assembly services due to COVID-19, Ergatta is currently offering professional assembly and installation.
After you place your order, Ergatta ships the component parts of your rower to a local technician who assembles the machine, then calls you to ask for your installation preferences and arrange a time to deliver it.
The company doesn't allow customers to assemble the machine themselves, but you can opt to have the technician leave it at your doorstep if you prefer them not to come inside.
When my Ergatta test unit arrived, the masked delivery technician carried the rower into my house, asked me where I wanted it, filled up the tank with water, plugged it in, and powered it on.
Ergatta tells me that the technician is supposed to siphon the water into the tank before they get to a customer's home.
In my case, the technician asked to fill a bucket using my tub spout, and showed me how to siphon the water into the rower's tank using the included hand pump, a process I found very interesting and didn't mind watching.
He placed a water purification tablet into the tank, and I was all set.
All I had to do was connect it to my Wi-Fi and create an account.
When creating an account, you add a username and password, select your level (beginner, intermediate, or advanced), and input your height, weight, and birthday.
Design and Features
The Ergatta is unlike any other smart rowing machine I've tried, both in terms of how it looks and how it works.
Design-wise, it's a conversation piece that catches eye, featuring a USA-sourced cherry wood frame, a clear water tank, and 17.3-inch HD touch screen on which you can browse and play workouts and view your stats.
I have the Ergatta in my workout room next to the Hydrow and the RW900.
The Ergatta and the Hydrow are both attractively designed machines, especially compared with the utilitarian RW900.
I prefer the modern look of the Hydrow, but friends are always drawn to the Ergatta thanks to its natural aesthetic.
Left to right: the Hydrow, NordicTrack RW900, and Ergatta The machine has adjustable footboards and a comfortable seat with four small wheels on the bottom that allow it to roll on two rails.
The Hydrow and RW900, on the other hand, both feature a monorail design.
Ergatta says WaterRower has verified that the machine supports users up to 700 pounds with a 40-inch maximum inseam.
The Hydrow, meanwhile, supports up to 375 pounds, while the RW900 supports up to 250 pounds.
Each machine offers a slightly different resistance mechanism.
The Ergatta has a water resistance system that naturally adjusts with your effort, so the harder you pull, the more resistance you feel.
As you row, you can hear the water whooshing around the tank, which adds to the experience.
On the side of the water tank, there are lines indicating water levels 13 through 19.
Ergatta recommends filling the tank with municipal water, which contains additives that will deter the growth of algae, to a level of 17.
Increasing the water level simulates the feel of a larger boat; decreasing it simulates the feel of a smaller boat.
Anytime you want to change the water level, you'll have to use an included siphon.
The machine comes with 10 small purification tablets to keep the water clear; you'll need to add one to the tank every six to 12 months, or whenever the water starts to discolor.
If the tablet doesn't help, you'll need to empty the tank, then refill it and add another tablet.
Image of the siphon and water purification tablets The Hydrow, meanwhile, has an electromagnetic resistance drag mechanism you can digitally adjust from levels 1 to 300.
The RW900 combines magnetic and air resistance, offering 26 digital and 10 manual air resistance levels.
Compared with these machines, the Ergatta is compact and light.
It measures 86 by 23 by 40 inches (LWH) and weighs 76.5 pounds without water (and around 103 pounds with water), so it's fairly easy to move around.
To save space, you can fold the arm down and store the machine vertically.
In the vertical storage position, it has a 22.5-by-23-inch footprint.
You can connect the Ergatta to the internet via Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable.
It has built-in speakers, but it also supports Bluetooth-enabled headphones as well as heart rate monitors.
In testing, I had no problem connecting my Apple AirPods and a Polar OH1 heart rate monitor to the machine.
Working Out With the Ergatta
The first workout you do on the Ergatta is a 2,000-meter calibration row that takes around 13 minutes to complete.
Ergatta uses that initial calibration to personalize its workouts and competitions to make them challenging for you.
Based on your performance in the calibration row, Ergatta will establish your personalized Intensity Zones reflecting your speed and endurance at four levels: paddle, steady, race, and sprint, with paddle being the easiest and sprint being the hardest.
If you find the Intensity Zones too easy or difficult to hit during workouts, Ergatta recommends repeating the calibration row.
As you improve, you'll need to recalibrate so your Intensity Zones match up with your capabilities. Ergatta tells me it's planning to soon roll out an update that enables automatic recalibration, so the system will continuously adapt to your fitness profile as you improve.
After each workout, you'll get a check-in showing your progress toward the next calibration level.
The Ergatta interface is colorful and well-organized.
On the main screen, there are four sections: Push Programs, Interval Workouts, Race Workouts, and Open Row.
The Push Programs section features collections of workouts designed to help you improve your endurance, power, and/or technique.
I signed up for a 10-workout program called Building Your Endurance that works you up to your first 30-minute row.
There are also programs to help you prepare for a 5K or 10K time trial challenge.
Interval Workouts challenge you to hit and maintain a certain stroke rate (also known as SPM or strokes per minute), 500-meter split time (how long it would take you to move 500 meters), or a combination of the two.
You can filter Interval Workouts by category (endurance, HIIT, or technique), difficulty (low, moderate, high, or very high), time (up to 60 minutes), or distance (up to more than 20,000 meters).
The SPM interval workouts are the easiest.
Your goal is to match the rhythm of a metronome-like visual aid on the screen to maintain a certain stroke rate and get a ball into the target zone. Split workouts focus on your intensity.
The goal is to use your legs to adjust your power to get the ball into the target zone. Hybrid workouts are the hardest.
They focus on both your rhythm and intensity.
Ergatta recommends getting your rhythm locked in first by following along with the visual aid on the screen, then adjusting your power to hit the target zone.
During Race Workouts, you compete against other members of the Ergatta community.
You can also do the same race more than once to try to beat your previous time.
You can filter races by distance or estimated time.
There are no live races or workouts on the Ergatta platform (the company says it plans to add them in the future), but the on-demand races feel competitive because Ergatta uses your calibration results to match you up with eight similar users.
On the racing track, circles indicate you and your opponents.
You're in the middle, with four competitors on either side.
As you race toward the finish line, you can see how far ahead or behind each competitor is.
When an opponent starts creeping up or passes you, it's motivation to increase your power and pace.
At the end of the race, you can see how you ranked against your eight opponents, and on the global leaderboard.
The Open Row feature lets you set a time and distance and row at your own pace.
During workouts, Ergatta shows plenty of information and metrics on the screen, including your time elapsed and remaining, how many intervals there will be and which one you're on (if it's an Interval Workout), your estimated calories burned, distance rowed, power (measured in watts), heart rate (if you have a heart rate monitor connected), split, and average split.
Before any workout, you can select your audio output preferences (whether you want to use the built-in speakers or Bluetooth headphones), the music station (mid-energy pop, high-energy pop, dance, hip-hop, classic rock, or none), and connect a heart rate monitor.
Ergatta has a partnership with Feed.fm for the music stations.
After you connect your headphones and heart rate monitor the first time, the system will remember them.
On future workouts, you'll be able to sync them with a single tap. You can't currently play your own music through the speakers, but Ergatta is planning to add that feature in the future.
On the top left corner of the main interface screen, there's a Settings button that lets you access tutorials, help videos, Wi-Fi settings, and integrations.
Right now, there's just one tutorial video that walks you through the Interval Workouts.
There are three help videos: a getting started guide, a short explainer on rowing form, and a walk-through of the Ergatta platform.
In the integrations section, you can connect your Ergatta account with Strava for automatic workout uploads.
From the main interface screen, you can also access Rankings and My Dashboard.
In Rankings, you can see how you stack up against other Ergatta users each month.
You can sort the rankings by distance rowed, best split, or average split, and filter them by age range, gender, and weight group.
In My Dashboard, Ergatta keeps a record of your workouts and metrics for each session.
Here, it also shows your personal records for best split, distance rowed, time rowed, and calories burned.
One of the things I like about Ergatta is that the company hosts monthly challenges, and makes a charity donation for every user who completes it.
This month, the company is challenging users to work out at least four times per week, and will donate $5 to the Kids In Need Foundation for every person that does.
My Experience With the Ergatta
I'll start with a caveat: I'm not really Ergatta's target customer.
As a yoga teacher and practitioner, I love the experience of a boutique fitness class with a motivating, knowledgeable instructor.
Ergatta's cofounder and CEO, Tom Aulet, tells me that one of the company's primary ethos is that, "Working out should feel like playing a sport, not taking a class." Ergatta is targeting consumers who are highly motivated by competition and games.
I don't fall into that category, but there are things I really like about the machine.
Its SPM-focused interval workouts can be meditative; there's something relaxing about watching the metronome-like visual aid move up and down, guiding your rhythm.
Maintaining a certain stroke rate is one of the hardest parts of rowing for me, and the guided visual makes it easy.
It's also nice to watch and hear the water swirling around in the tank as you row.
The race workouts always get my heart pumping as I try to beat my opponents to the finish line.
Ergatta's calibration process works well; the workouts feel appropriately difficult for my fitness level, and the races are competitive.
That said, I prefer the scenic, outdoor, instructor-led workouts on the Hydrow and the RW900.
On those machines, I can row for a longer duration of time, upwards of about 35 minutes.
Both feature excellent instructors who tell stories about their lives and rowing careers, and point out interesting sights along the way, which helps pass the time and makes the...
When it comes to exercise, it doesn't get much better than being on a rowboat, feeling the wind on your skin, seeing the sparkle of the sun on the water, and hearing the ebb and flow of the waves as you paddle freely.
No indoor workout can replicate that, but the Ergatta isn't not your average rowing machine.
Featuring a handsome cherry wood frame and a clear water tank, it's easily the best-looking model on the market.
And with a 17.3-inch touch screen on which you can browse and play gaming-inspired workouts that are personalized for your fitness level, the Ergatta is as smart as it is attractive, with a premium price to match: $2,199 plus a monthly membership fee.
If rowing is your primary form of exercise and you're looking for a machine that will complement (or even enhance) your home decor, the Ergatta is worth a look.
If you're new to rowing, however, be aware that it currently offers almost no instructional rowing content, and no trainer-led rows or mat-based workouts, features you'll find on competing machines.
It might not look as nice as the Ergatta, but the NordicTrack RW900 has a larger screen, gives you access to a vast and varied selection of iFit workouts on and off the machine, features excellent trainers who will teach you how to row if you're a beginner, and costs less, retaining our Editors' Choice for smart rowing machines.
Price and Setup
Manufactured in the US by WaterRower, a respected name in the indoor rowing machine market, the Ergatta costs $2,199, plus $199 for shipping and installation.
To make the price more manageable, you can finance it starting around $102 per month for 24 months.
As is customary for smart workout machines, you have to pay extra for a class membership.
The $29 monthly (or $290 yearly) Ergatta membership gives you access to the company's game-based fitness platform, which includes a library of "hundreds" of workouts, goal-based training programs, personal dashboards, competitions, and monthly challenges.
With the membership, you can create an unlimited number of profiles on your machine, so everyone in your household can have their own account that is calibrated to them (more on the calibration process in a bit).
There's plenty of content to keep you busy, and Ergatta says it's adding more than five new workouts each week.
For comparison, the Hydrow, which features a larger 22-inch touch screen, costs $2,199, plus $38 monthly for a membership, and comes with free standard delivery.
The RW900, which also sports a 22-inch touch screen, costs $1,699, plus $199 for delivery, and comes with a free one-year premium iFit class membership, making it the most affordable of the bunch. Unlike these machines, the Ergatta doesn't feature instructor-led classes, live rows, or mat-based workouts to supplement your rowing.
While Hydrow and NordicTrack have suspended their assembly services due to COVID-19, Ergatta is currently offering professional assembly and installation.
After you place your order, Ergatta ships the component parts of your rower to a local technician who assembles the machine, then calls you to ask for your installation preferences and arrange a time to deliver it.
The company doesn't allow customers to assemble the machine themselves, but you can opt to have the technician leave it at your doorstep if you prefer them not to come inside.
When my Ergatta test unit arrived, the masked delivery technician carried the rower into my house, asked me where I wanted it, filled up the tank with water, plugged it in, and powered it on.
Ergatta tells me that the technician is supposed to siphon the water into the tank before they get to a customer's home.
In my case, the technician asked to fill a bucket using my tub spout, and showed me how to siphon the water into the rower's tank using the included hand pump, a process I found very interesting and didn't mind watching.
He placed a water purification tablet into the tank, and I was all set.
All I had to do was connect it to my Wi-Fi and create an account.
When creating an account, you add a username and password, select your level (beginner, intermediate, or advanced), and input your height, weight, and birthday.
Design and Features
The Ergatta is unlike any other smart rowing machine I've tried, both in terms of how it looks and how it works.
Design-wise, it's a conversation piece that catches eye, featuring a USA-sourced cherry wood frame, a clear water tank, and 17.3-inch HD touch screen on which you can browse and play workouts and view your stats.
I have the Ergatta in my workout room next to the Hydrow and the RW900.
The Ergatta and the Hydrow are both attractively designed machines, especially compared with the utilitarian RW900.
I prefer the modern look of the Hydrow, but friends are always drawn to the Ergatta thanks to its natural aesthetic.
Left to right: the Hydrow, NordicTrack RW900, and Ergatta The machine has adjustable footboards and a comfortable seat with four small wheels on the bottom that allow it to roll on two rails.
The Hydrow and RW900, on the other hand, both feature a monorail design.
Ergatta says WaterRower has verified that the machine supports users up to 700 pounds with a 40-inch maximum inseam.
The Hydrow, meanwhile, supports up to 375 pounds, while the RW900 supports up to 250 pounds.
Each machine offers a slightly different resistance mechanism.
The Ergatta has a water resistance system that naturally adjusts with your effort, so the harder you pull, the more resistance you feel.
As you row, you can hear the water whooshing around the tank, which adds to the experience.
On the side of the water tank, there are lines indicating water levels 13 through 19.
Ergatta recommends filling the tank with municipal water, which contains additives that will deter the growth of algae, to a level of 17.
Increasing the water level simulates the feel of a larger boat; decreasing it simulates the feel of a smaller boat.
Anytime you want to change the water level, you'll have to use an included siphon.
The machine comes with 10 small purification tablets to keep the water clear; you'll need to add one to the tank every six to 12 months, or whenever the water starts to discolor.
If the tablet doesn't help, you'll need to empty the tank, then refill it and add another tablet.
Image of the siphon and water purification tablets The Hydrow, meanwhile, has an electromagnetic resistance drag mechanism you can digitally adjust from levels 1 to 300.
The RW900 combines magnetic and air resistance, offering 26 digital and 10 manual air resistance levels.
Compared with these machines, the Ergatta is compact and light.
It measures 86 by 23 by 40 inches (LWH) and weighs 76.5 pounds without water (and around 103 pounds with water), so it's fairly easy to move around.
To save space, you can fold the arm down and store the machine vertically.
In the vertical storage position, it has a 22.5-by-23-inch footprint.
You can connect the Ergatta to the internet via Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable.
It has built-in speakers, but it also supports Bluetooth-enabled headphones as well as heart rate monitors.
In testing, I had no problem connecting my Apple AirPods and a Polar OH1 heart rate monitor to the machine.
Working Out With the Ergatta
The first workout you do on the Ergatta is a 2,000-meter calibration row that takes around 13 minutes to complete.
Ergatta uses that initial calibration to personalize its workouts and competitions to make them challenging for you.
Based on your performance in the calibration row, Ergatta will establish your personalized Intensity Zones reflecting your speed and endurance at four levels: paddle, steady, race, and sprint, with paddle being the easiest and sprint being the hardest.
If you find the Intensity Zones too easy or difficult to hit during workouts, Ergatta recommends repeating the calibration row.
As you improve, you'll need to recalibrate so your Intensity Zones match up with your capabilities. Ergatta tells me it's planning to soon roll out an update that enables automatic recalibration, so the system will continuously adapt to your fitness profile as you improve.
After each workout, you'll get a check-in showing your progress toward the next calibration level.
The Ergatta interface is colorful and well-organized.
On the main screen, there are four sections: Push Programs, Interval Workouts, Race Workouts, and Open Row.
The Push Programs section features collections of workouts designed to help you improve your endurance, power, and/or technique.
I signed up for a 10-workout program called Building Your Endurance that works you up to your first 30-minute row.
There are also programs to help you prepare for a 5K or 10K time trial challenge.
Interval Workouts challenge you to hit and maintain a certain stroke rate (also known as SPM or strokes per minute), 500-meter split time (how long it would take you to move 500 meters), or a combination of the two.
You can filter Interval Workouts by category (endurance, HIIT, or technique), difficulty (low, moderate, high, or very high), time (up to 60 minutes), or distance (up to more than 20,000 meters).
The SPM interval workouts are the easiest.
Your goal is to match the rhythm of a metronome-like visual aid on the screen to maintain a certain stroke rate and get a ball into the target zone. Split workouts focus on your intensity.
The goal is to use your legs to adjust your power to get the ball into the target zone. Hybrid workouts are the hardest.
They focus on both your rhythm and intensity.
Ergatta recommends getting your rhythm locked in first by following along with the visual aid on the screen, then adjusting your power to hit the target zone.
During Race Workouts, you compete against other members of the Ergatta community.
You can also do the same race more than once to try to beat your previous time.
You can filter races by distance or estimated time.
There are no live races or workouts on the Ergatta platform (the company says it plans to add them in the future), but the on-demand races feel competitive because Ergatta uses your calibration results to match you up with eight similar users.
On the racing track, circles indicate you and your opponents.
You're in the middle, with four competitors on either side.
As you race toward the finish line, you can see how far ahead or behind each competitor is.
When an opponent starts creeping up or passes you, it's motivation to increase your power and pace.
At the end of the race, you can see how you ranked against your eight opponents, and on the global leaderboard.
The Open Row feature lets you set a time and distance and row at your own pace.
During workouts, Ergatta shows plenty of information and metrics on the screen, including your time elapsed and remaining, how many intervals there will be and which one you're on (if it's an Interval Workout), your estimated calories burned, distance rowed, power (measured in watts), heart rate (if you have a heart rate monitor connected), split, and average split.
Before any workout, you can select your audio output preferences (whether you want to use the built-in speakers or Bluetooth headphones), the music station (mid-energy pop, high-energy pop, dance, hip-hop, classic rock, or none), and connect a heart rate monitor.
Ergatta has a partnership with Feed.fm for the music stations.
After you connect your headphones and heart rate monitor the first time, the system will remember them.
On future workouts, you'll be able to sync them with a single tap. You can't currently play your own music through the speakers, but Ergatta is planning to add that feature in the future.
On the top left corner of the main interface screen, there's a Settings button that lets you access tutorials, help videos, Wi-Fi settings, and integrations.
Right now, there's just one tutorial video that walks you through the Interval Workouts.
There are three help videos: a getting started guide, a short explainer on rowing form, and a walk-through of the Ergatta platform.
In the integrations section, you can connect your Ergatta account with Strava for automatic workout uploads.
From the main interface screen, you can also access Rankings and My Dashboard.
In Rankings, you can see how you stack up against other Ergatta users each month.
You can sort the rankings by distance rowed, best split, or average split, and filter them by age range, gender, and weight group.
In My Dashboard, Ergatta keeps a record of your workouts and metrics for each session.
Here, it also shows your personal records for best split, distance rowed, time rowed, and calories burned.
One of the things I like about Ergatta is that the company hosts monthly challenges, and makes a charity donation for every user who completes it.
This month, the company is challenging users to work out at least four times per week, and will donate $5 to the Kids In Need Foundation for every person that does.
My Experience With the Ergatta
I'll start with a caveat: I'm not really Ergatta's target customer.
As a yoga teacher and practitioner, I love the experience of a boutique fitness class with a motivating, knowledgeable instructor.
Ergatta's cofounder and CEO, Tom Aulet, tells me that one of the company's primary ethos is that, "Working out should feel like playing a sport, not taking a class." Ergatta is targeting consumers who are highly motivated by competition and games.
I don't fall into that category, but there are things I really like about the machine.
Its SPM-focused interval workouts can be meditative; there's something relaxing about watching the metronome-like visual aid move up and down, guiding your rhythm.
Maintaining a certain stroke rate is one of the hardest parts of rowing for me, and the guided visual makes it easy.
It's also nice to watch and hear the water swirling around in the tank as you row.
The race workouts always get my heart pumping as I try to beat my opponents to the finish line.
Ergatta's calibration process works well; the workouts feel appropriately difficult for my fitness level, and the races are competitive.
That said, I prefer the scenic, outdoor, instructor-led workouts on the Hydrow and the RW900.
On those machines, I can row for a longer duration of time, upwards of about 35 minutes.
Both feature excellent instructors who tell stories about their lives and rowing careers, and point out interesting sights along the way, which helps pass the time and makes the...
