FluidRower 4+

This App or should we call it a “mishap” is shambolic and is neither fit for purpose of a merchantable quality.

To think that this app is meant to partner rowing machines costing in the region of £1500 to £2000+ beggars belief. It is the app and connectivity that is used to sell these expensive machines but it simply does not work.

Here are just some of the design faults

Continually drops Bluetooth - that in itself is bad, but to put it in context, it is pretty soul destroying when the drop in connection occurs when you are 3500 m into a 5000m rowing challenge.

The app doesn’t communicate with any other app, in a way it’s not surprising as I cannot communicate with the rowing machine.

The app freezes repeatedly.

The UI has not been thought out. Adjusting target distances etc is by the use of imprecise slider scales, why can’t you simply input the distance etc required using a key pad.

It is quite obvious that the equipment manufacture and retailers Fitness Superstore have very little regard for their customers, as if they did this app would have been reworked ASAP and in the case of the retailers they would have delisted it. But customers only find out how shockingly bad the app and ultimately the rowing machine is once they have parted with their money.

As others have said it’s hard to see what this app actually does...

About the only useful feature is that it records a history of sessions but even that is botched; I’ve had duplicates logged and there doesn’t appear to be an option to pause a workout so stats are very close to useless.

Four out of five times it doesn’t even display the avg/500m pace (the instant 500m pace is displayed so this isn’t a hardware issue).

What’s needed is Apple GymKit integration so data can be recorded somewhere useful.

Thankfully FDF rowing machines are better quality than this app but you should certainly not buy one on the expectation that you’ll enjoy a useful companion app.

I can just see the information that’s on the rowing machine monitor on my phone? And that’s it? Doesn’t record the information and doesn’t interact with any other fitness apps? Not really sure what the point is, such a shame putting Bluetooth into the machine if this is all I can do with it? Are there any other apps you can connect to the rower via Bluetooth?