Tempo vs Tonal vs your phone: do you need a smart home gym?
Smart home gyms promise the thing every home lifter wants: training that watches you, counts for you, and adjusts to you. Tonal and Tempo are the two names people compare, and both are real, well-built products. They are also a major purchase plus a permanent subscription, so before you spend a few thousand dollars, it is worth being precise about which parts of the promise need hardware and which parts your phone already does.
We make MyRepsCount, the phone app in this comparison. Tonal and Tempo pricing below comes from published reviews and vendor pages as of August 2026 and can change; check current prices before buying anything.
Tonal: the wall-mounted machine
Tonal is a wall unit with electromagnetic resistance instead of physical weights: up to 200 pounds of adjustable cable resistance, automatic weight suggestions, form feedback, and a big coached content library. The costs are the story: about $2,995 for the hardware, installation on a wall that can take it, and a required membership around $59.95 a month. Reviewers love the training experience. The all-in first-year cost lands north of $3,700, and the machine stops being smart if you stop paying.
Tempo: cameras plus real weights
Tempo takes the approach we find more sympathetic: real dumbbells and barbells, with sensors watching your movement for counting and form. The entry product, Tempo Move, runs about $495 plus a membership around $39 a month, with bundle tiers rising from there. It is meaningfully cheaper than Tonal and keeps you on free weights, which transfer to any gym. It is still hundreds up front and a permanent subscription for the smart features.
Your phone: the part they do not advertise
Here is the precise claim, no more: the counting-and-tracking layer of a smart gym, the part where something watches your set and keeps score, does not require hardware anymore. Your phone's camera can do it. Our app counts over 60 exercises hands-free, including the dumbbell and kettlebell movements you would run on a Tempo: rows, presses, curls, flys, cleans, thrusters, swings, deadlifts, plus all the bodyweight work. It builds Tabata, AMRAP, and rep workouts, runs leaderboards, and the counting is free on iPhone and Android. It can even recognize which dumbbell you picked up, a premium feature, so the weight logs itself.
What the phone honestly does not replace: Tonal's adjustable resistance (that is physics; a phone cannot generate 200 pounds of cable tension), the guided coaching content both platforms produce, and Tempo's 3D body scanning. If those are what you are buying, buy them with open eyes.
The math
| Tonal | Tempo Move | Phone + your dumbbells | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | ~$2,995 + install | ~$495 | $0 (you own it) |
| Subscription | ~$59.95/mo required | ~$39/mo | None for counting |
| First-year total | ~$3,700+ | ~$960+ | $0, plus weights if you need them |
| Resistance | Electromagnetic, to 200 lb | Your free weights | Your free weights |
| Rep counting | Yes | Yes | Yes, 60+ exercises |
| Coaching content | Extensive | Extensive | Workout library, no video coaching |
Our honest recommendation
If you have the budget and you know coached, machine-guided training is what keeps you consistent, Tonal is the premium product and Tempo is the value version of the same idea. But if what you actually want is your reps counted and your progress kept honest, try the free version of that first, this week, with the weights in your closet. A few hundred workouts from now you will know whether the rest of the smart gym was the part you needed. The app is on the App Store and Google Play, and there is more on the no-hardware approach on our Tempo alternative page.