Hydrow Reviews 10,044

I've never rowed before, but did a lot of research on the rowers. Hydrow had what I was looking for: high quality, instructional videos, pertinent metrics and motivational encouragement. I lost 30 pounds in the first 3 months and love the meditational value it provides. 60 year old couch potato....not anymore.

A wonderful machine with encouraging coaches. The variety of locations and rowing paces keeps me engaged.

The Hydrow machine is great. 5 stars. But you have to pay an additional CDN$70 per month after you've paid $3300 for the rowing machine. Hydrow should give you at least one video with your purchase. Or have tiered subscription models. Currently, they have one subscription and it is $70 per month. Way too high. If you don't pay the subscription, the screen is blank except for a few stats. No videos of open water, nothing.

The Hydrow wave is a fantastic rowing machine. It is easy to use, rows smoothly and when you add workout membership it makes it even better. I find the instructors to be excellent and workouts are great.

They’ve removed all features and adjustments for rowing without a membership. You can’t adjust the drag or see how far you have rowed, your split time, nothing.

It is a beautiful machine. Compact with many functions. I love the work out and motivation it gives!

Bad customer service and not responsive.
Everything is lagging

I just wrote a previous review below but was unable to respond to the hydrow support answer.

Before I send a private email to the support group I wanted to ask one question in response. Is your idea of an “issue resolution” forcing your customers to pay $200 every few months for specialized repair services? This is a design defect, this is not from misuse. This exact issue of the “broken handle spool assembly” has affected me twice this year and many other members per the reviews. Do you expect us to pay $200 every time this breaks?

The Hydrow Pro has a severe design flaw that makes it unsafe to use. The screen has a glass surface that is not laminated, meaning any crack is liable to spew shards of broken glass, which has no place in any type of gym equipment. Furthermore, the handle does not have any guard on it, meaning a user could lose their grip on it and send it flying at the screen. This happened to me during regular use, leaving my home gym covered in glass shards and the touchscreen completely inoperable. Without even getting into their predatory, terribly expensive, and essentially mandatory subscription service, this is straight up an unsafe piece of equipment that is liable to hurt you. Their support is horrible and does not offer replacement parts besides a $450 replacement monitor, so good luck maintaining this incredibly expensive piece of equipment for long. I cannot recommend buying a Concept2 or literally any other rowing machine enough—it is a terrible product.

I love the Hydrow rowing machine! It is the best decision I have made in a long time. From the purchase, to delivery, to help setting up my rower, to using it (which is amazing!), my whole experience has been top notch. I love the training videos that have helped correct my posture, breathing, use of legs - well everything - and the work out videos that push me to do more than I thought I could. Overall - just great!

The product is a little pricey, but all the reviews all the topics. Everything about this rowing machine lives up to its name and I’m glad that I have it.

No intermitent training choices, Cant make custom sessions. The fact that you pay 40GBP a month for videos of rowing is..... a joke. No wants them on Ebay shows what they are really worth. Avoid, Go for others.

After dealing with Hydrow customer service I changed my review to one star from three. Reasons follow in the Customer service paragraphs.

We purchased the Hydrow with only the Peloton row as competition. We like the online classes vs the gamified experience of others.

There are a couple of areas where Hydrow shines over the Peloton (we have the Peloton bike and about 4 years of experience). First, there is a place where we live that will work on the rower if something happens. Our experiences with Peloton customer service is probably the worst of any company I have ever worked with. We were once unable to use our bike for about 4 months. They also refused to even sell us a rower. We live in an "unsupported" area even though they support the bike here. They did not even care if we arranged for shipping. We did find a way around it and almost bought anyway. Just a horrible company in our experience. Hydrow has a local retailer that has a good reputation.

Hydrow also has a larger library of workouts.

The Hydrow rower has a great reputation for sturdiness and longevity. Peloton now has a list of "acceptable" sounds the machine makes. Evidently it is very quite when new but many people report loud noises and the list on the Peloton site has some irritating "acceptable" sounds.

The Hydrow is heavier and feels stout even to me as a strong 220lb rower.

The Peloton online and app experience is far superior to Hydrow. I cannot even get on the Hydrow app. It keeps telling me I have the wrong password, I change it, and it repeats the message. I even changed it to a super simple old password I have used so I knew I did not put it in wrong. I finally did get the app to come up but it did not connect to my account. In my short experience it is terrible.

It turns out it did connect to my account. It just made me try to reenter all my data again. Hydrow got back to me on my issues. They make customer reenter all their information to make it a better customer experience according to them. Huh? One has to reenter their date of birth. There is no option to simply type in that date. Instead, the arrow going back month to month has to be clicked in order to enter a birthdate. That's over 720 clicks for me.

They also just sent me a reply that said I did not have to reenter my data to use the app. When I open the app I am given no options other than to enter my data. One button option one several screens (I did not go beyond the screen requiring me to click over 720 times). Im not sure customer service has ever used their own app. I guess I have the option of putting my birthdate as today.

There is no online list of Hydrow classes. The app has to be used and evidently that is not something available to me. Peloton allows me to make a list of classes I want to take in a session online, or the app, then the list shows up on the machine. For us, on the Hydrow we have to get on the machine and do the search for what class we want. No ability to create a list that goes from desired class to desired class. I much prefer planning a workout ahead of time and then doing the workout (with warm ups, cool downs, and stretching included). The Peloton experience is far superior in this regard.

Peloton classes allow me to skip the intros. Hydrow does not or at least we have not found out how to do it. I rarely find the intros necessary or helpful and would prefer not to sit and wait for a minute or more.

A warning is in order. I have ben on Peloton for years and have become comfortable with the experience. That may too come to pass for Hydrow. For now I prefer Peloton in this regard.

Overall we chose the Hydrow due to Peloton's nightmare customer service and seemingly better long term rower. The cost was another monthly fee. Seems worth it so far.

The machine is good but the software isn’t. It forces you to listen to an intro on how to use it every time even if you’ve used it 1000 times. It’s very expensive subscription. I cancelled as I use it infrequently and £600 a year is not justified . Without it the machine is incredibly basic. Do not recommend

Smooth purchasing process. The instructions for assembling were easy to follow, and the assembly was straightforward. I am relatively new to rowing, and the variety of "getting started" types of videos that instruct you on form, breathing, mindset, etc. have been very helpful. So far, I am enjoying the journey. The only aspect of the program that has been a little annoying (and it may be that I'm not yet understanding the way the system works) is that, if you pick a series (e.g. 1 of 4) and you complete the first one, the second one doesn't automatically appear as the next for you to launch. You have to go find it. Otherwise, it has been a great experience!

I was looking for a workout that was easier on my knees. I had tried running a few times in the past. I chose a hydrow and LOVE it!! I can’t wait to work out now! Even my husband and two kids have joined in and use it!

The workout itself has always been a good experience. Just rowed my 2 millionth meter, felt good about it, until Hydrow turned the event into a cash grab: "Here's your free commemorative gift, a hat for the low cost of $14.99! For 'shipping'!" Full cost would purportedly be $45 for an item that probably cost under $2 to manufacture. Tawdry and shameless.

I am giving Hydrow four stars, primarily due to the shipping. My unit sat two hours away from me almost five days, waiting for a third-party shipper to deliver it. I had to call them every day to get updated shipping information. The package was delivered, and the box was damaged. I told the driver that I needed to inspect the unit before signing the shipping papers. He said it is fine, just sign. He also stated that I needed to check the box that said he had another man to help him, when in fact he did not.

I am enjoying the rower. Used it every day since I got it. I lived in Hawaii as a young man, so I appreciate the sessions in Hawaii. Love to row across Hanalei Bay if you guys can get there.

Purchased a new Wave rower and the cable came loose after using it 4 times. Now I have to figure out the steps to restore the machine to factory settings. I wish I'd saved the box I'd return it.