Echelon EX3 Smart Connect Fitness Bike (Black)

Completely fails to connect to anything, their mandatory cloud subscription app won't work properly, not that I would pay them £25/mo for the ability to change the resistance on an exercise bike I purchased and put into my house, anyawy.

A lot of play in the bike when assembled from new and everything is tight. Secondly, the screen is very buggy, takes ages to respond and when updating needs a cryptic cycle of download, unplug, re-download until Complete. Without this tango being complete the bike becomes locked. Lastly connecting of heart rate devices is shambolic. I’m into heart rate zone training at the minute so this is a HUGE deal for me. Had a garmin watch that worked for my first ride then would t connect at all afterwards, even when “forgetting device”, this just led to my watch being a total write off. Purchased an Apple Watch to use and it turns out that will only work with the phone app and not the bike. So now I have to use my phone with Apple Watch alongside the bike screen to do HR training. I would purchase a chest HR strap but I have no faith in the bike working with it and do not want to waste anymore money. Finally, the support for the bike is shocking. Cannot find any advice on the EX-5S that is useful and get ghosted by support. Just avoid and get a cheap as chips bike, because that’s all this is. Or splash a lot more on Peleton.

Two years after my initial purchase I final invested in bike cleat shoes. Sadly it took me this long to discover there was a manufacturer error made in the pedals. The model claims the that it adapts to two, types of shoes, street shoes and bike shoes with cleats. Though this may be true the pedals sent with my bike were installed with reversed shoe cleats and and in order to switch from street shoes to Spd cleatbike shoes the pedals need to be removed

I’ll first start off with saying this bike is my first venture into cycling. I went with the EX-5 here on Amazon and saved a couple hundred over the Echelon website. From what I’ve seen, the 5 has beneficial upgrades over the 3 that I see some complaining about. The only difference between the EX-5 and EX-5S (for $500 more) is the large screen which I really didn’t see necessary. I first started using my 2020 iPad Pro for a screen but soon wanted a more permanent solution. I ordered a Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 for the bike for under $200 bucks and I still saved several hundred over the 5S. If the large screen is important to you, then why not splurge for the larger screen! Install was easy - but the directions were a bit vague. Most installation instruction manuals call out the screws / bolts by name, size, and sometimes photos. This isn’t the case with Echelon. To know which bolt is which, you must look in its table of contents breakdown and that is where it calls out each hardware piece. It’s OK, I just wish they were called out in the step by steps. There isn’t very much hardware to install so it makes it almost a non issue. The bike itself is very sturdy and it’s awkward shape makes it very heavy to move, especially while in the box so make sure you’ve got some help to move it. I’d also suggest do not put the bike together until it’s in it’s permanent location. This makes moving the smaller parts around easier. The bike functions well. Connected to both my iPad and Galaxy tab without issues. The on screen leaderboards and data output are really neat. The bike has quite a bit of adjustment for riders of many heights. I’m 6’ and fit comfortably. I find the seat stiff, but not uncomfortable. The classes are really fun and seemingly make time go by rather quickly. The live leaderboards give you something to work towards. You can certainly use other apps / subscriptions on this bike if you want to, but in my findings the app needs to be at least connected to adjust resistance. Great bike - I’m pleased with my purchase.

The product picture shows an iPad. It’s not part of the product. Also checking the speed or any other feature is available only with subscription. No subscription = you get. Very basic bike.

Extremely savvy consumer here, this is exactly the bike I wanted, Peleton quality or better, but not at Peleton prices, and I knew all of that going in. I bought this bike from Amazon instead of their website b/c on their website they force you to buy an expensive monthly membership. I went pure apple fitness from day one, and that's why I wanted this specific bike. There are some things you need to know purchasing this bike. 1. Echelon expects you to buy a membership, like they're going to look at you with two heads if you don't. As well they try to sell you those big TV's on the bikes to make the membership seem more appealing, but we already have a TV, and an apple TV connected to it. To us the additional screen wasn't worth it, and neither was the membership. 2. If you have an apple watch and apple fitness already, and if you have either an ipad or an iphone, this is the definitely the bike you want. My watch connects bluetooth to my apple TV for my all my apple fitness workouts, and I have either an ipad or my iphone connected via bluetooth directly to the bike using a third party app called qdomyos-zwift. This app connects to many smart bikes including this one, and shows things like time on bike, resistance, calories burned, distance, RPM, etc. 3. When you get it home and assembled, you'll think the tension nob is broken. It isn't, don't freak out like I did. Just get the app above, unplug/replug the bike and it'll show up on the app. You'll see the tension nob and flywheel are not broken. Or obviously, if you get the membership app on your phone or ipad you'll see it works fine there as well. 4. I tried the 90 day membership, I prefer all the additional benefits of Apple Fitness over their program. The membership thing is good, they have good videos, but it doesn't outweigh all the new apple fitness features. 5. There's a youtube video on how to assemble this bike. Youtube search for "Professional Assembly Of Echelon Connect Bikes Ex-5 Ex-3 Ex-4." The directions that come with the bike are OK, but this guy nails it. Would have probably saved me an hour in assembly time. Either way, this is a really nice bike. Amazon must sell a lot of these to the local gyms, mine was delivered in one day. Feel safe with the purchase, get the membership if you want it.

INSTALLATION: The box came damaged from the outside but the bike was well packed so no damage to the bike. The installation manual is acceptable, but I would recommend using the video on Youtube as it is more detailed. The actual installation was straight forward and it took me about 45 minutes. Please note that you will need to purchase the 2LB weights as they don't come with the bike. SCREEN AND ECHELON FIT APP: This is where Echelon was not clear on their website, and actually, it was misleading since they state that they support Apple IOS, but the APP never worked for me on my IPAD 2 nor on my iPhone 11 PRO MAX with the latest IOS level. This was so frustrating! I contacted Echelon support by email and they gave me the same information on their website indicating they support IOS, but it never worked no matter what I did. I ended up going to BestBuy and buying a Samsung A7 10" tablet - installed the APP on the Samsung Tablet and it worked right away. Echelon support also mentioned that they recommend a Samsung Tablet for their APP. BIKE OPERATION: With the use of the APP on my Samsung 10", I still had to enroll in the full membership to be able to use the cycling classes. Without the classes, the bike is really not of good use. So take it from me, buy the $34/month membership to be able to use the cycling classes. And once you do, you will see how amazing this bike is. Overall, make sure you buy a Samsung tablet, and the monthly $34/month membership to truly enjoy this bike. Enjoy!