If you're into HIIT, strength work, yoga or cardio, FIIT could be the home workout app you've been looking for. Whether you look at is as Jane Fonda for the 21st century, a slightly less annoying, more high-tech Joe Wicks, or Wii Fit for grown-ups, FIIT seems like a great system, giving you the expertise of personal trainers and the analysis provided by cardio-tracking wearable tech for just £20 per month.
The exercises included at launch don't involve any specialist equipment. Just fire up the app and watch personal trainers and 'fitness influencers' such as Alex Crockford and Richie Norton.
You can watch them guide you through the workout on your phone – the FIIT starter kit even comes with a little stand for it – but the brand is pushing the idea of using a TV, via HDMI, Apple TV or Chromecast. That is because the trainers' muscles are so enormous, even a larger phone screen can't really do them justice, making one of the best 4K TVs a better option.
This wouldn't be worth the £20 per month that FIIT was asking if it were just a matter of watching someone shout "Now get into a plank position!" at you, although FIIT's videos are unusually well filmed, with very clear audio.
The clever bit is that you also get a heart-rate chest strap with various movement sensors in it, so it can track your pulse as you workout and count reps in HIIT and strength workouts. It's somewhat less useful for yoga/balance type exercises, but the pulse info there is still interesting at least.
What you see onscreen, then, is your personal trainer guiding your through the exercise, timers counting down the current exercise and the session as a whole (25- and 40-minute workouts are available), your current heart rate and heart rate zone and your FIIT points.
These are calculated based on your age, weight and level of exertion during the workout. The idea is to give a more level playing field, so someone who is out of shape will earn points for pushing themselves, even if they're not working out at the same level as really fit people, such as the T3 team.
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Pricing is pretty keen if you compare it to joining a gym and/or seeing a personal trainer in real life.
• FIIT has the following packages available now: £20 per month, £45 per quarter, £120 per year. You can also have a one-month trial with your money back if you're 'not addicted'.
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Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.
Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years.
A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."