I tried the Hydrow Arc Rower for a month — my thoughts on this full-body burn

Compared to many other exercises, the rowing machine puts minimal strain on your joints while still boosting your cardiovascular health and muscle strength. Rowing machines are designed to simulate the movement of rowing on the water. You’ll get a full body workout and hit 86% of your major muscle groups in just 20 minutes, including your quads, calves, glutes, pecs, arms, abs, and obliques. These machines have advanced significantly since the early days of wooden frames.

I tried the Hydrow Arc Rower for a month — the latest, most advanced Hydrow machine yet, built to support next-generation AI. It was smooth sailing, or should I say rowing, from the delivery and set up to the workouts.

Specs and price

Here are the specs:

Price

At the time of writing, the high-tech Hydrow Arc Rower is available for $2,095 (usually $2,295 when it’s not on sale) with options for financing. Keep in mind that this doesn’t include the Hydrow subscription, which provides access to thousands of diverse workouts, the mat that goes under the machine, or the vertical storage kit. This just includes the rower and the ‘just row’ option. You also have the option to purchase other accessories on the Hydrow website to go with your rower, such as a heart rate monitor you can sync up, two small blue workout blocks, and a box of resistance bands.

Bundles

On the Hydrow website, you can choose from three bundles:

30-day at-home trial and one-year limited warranty

The Hydrow Arc rower comes with a one-year home use limited warranty and a free 30-day “at-home trial”, which is pretty cool. If you don’t love it within those 30 days, they’ll come pick it up for you and issue a refund.

Space-saving vertical storage

You can store your rower vertically up against the wall to save space, but you’ll need to purchase the upright storage kit for an additional $80. The kit includes parts for mounting into wood studs or masonry. It’s basically a special hook you secure to the wall before essentially turning your rower upright, so it’s standing on its front feet. The strap around the neck of the rower clips onto the wall hook.

When stored upright, the Hydrow Arc rower measures 25″W x 33″D x 86″H.

Delivery and set up

Delivery

This bad boy took about three weeks to arrive in one big box, with two additional small boxes of accessories that were delivered a couple of days earlier. You can choose from two different shipping and delivery options: 

• Standard delivery is included with your purchase, but doesn’t include unpacking, assembly, or the removal of packaging materials. 
• The in-home assembly option is available for an extra charge and involves the delivery people unwrapping and taking away all of the packaging for you.

Set up

This sleek, modern machine comes in one piece. The two delivery people took about 25 minutes to set it up and take away the rather large box, which was faster than expected. It might take two people (depending on strength) to lift this indoor rower to place the protective mat underneath. The setup involved only a small number of bolts and screws and several simple steps, like fixing the bottom support at the front to stabilize the rower and securely placing the screen on top.

Getting ready to row

When you’re plugged in and ready to rock and row, you connect your Wi-Fi and create your account with your email and screen name. You can enter your height, weight, gender, birthdate, and location for several reasons, including personalizing your fitness experience and more accurately tracking metrics such as estimated calories burned and power output. The next step is activating your Hydrow membership.

The Hydrow membership

With a membership of $44 per month or $528 per year (plus applicable taxes), you’ll get:

• Access to over 5,000 on-demand workouts led by professional athletes and Olympians, such as power and endurance workouts, Pilates, strength and circuit training, and yoga. There are also live workouts.
• Fitness challenges, weekly races, and milestone rewards.
• A real-time leaderboard so that you can compete with other Hydrow members.
• Progress-tracking tools and personalized recommendations.
• Access to the app, so you can work out on the go. 

One membership provides multiple user profiles for your whole household.

A world of workouts at your fingertips

With the membership, it’s so much more than a rowing machine, and you can choose from so many options, including:

• Featured and recommended workouts
• Circuits
• Strength training
• Yoga
• Pilates
• Stretching
• Mobility

You can even choose your favorite athlete. One day I was in the mood for a simple five-minute stretch, and the next I chose a 20-minute circuit, going from doing strength training to rowing and back again. Some workouts involve dumbbells, so you’ll need to get them separately or have a pair on hand if you want to throw in some extra resistance training. 

My favorite features

Smooth with resistance

You really feel like you’re getting a good workout in. It’s smooth with the resistance thanks to the electromagnetic drag system that mimics the feel of rowing on the open water. You can adjust the resistance levels on the screen, and the default “drag” setting is intended to feel the most like rowing on the water. 

Quiet

My washing machine and my robot vacuum make more noise than this rower. Plus, you can always adjust the volume, turn on some music, and choose from different sound profiles, like “only music” or “more athlete,” which cranks up the athlete’s voice louder than the music. Choose from lots of genres, including classic rock, classical, Latin, and a personal favorite of mine, the 80s, which added quite the pep in my step, or should I say a glow to my row. You can also pair your Bluetooth audio with headphones.

Where in the world should you go and row?

This machine is honestly incredibly immersive, and you can row on the glistening water of Scandinavian fjords or the Banana River in Florida, which adds a somewhat relaxing feel even to a more intense workout. You can row as the amber sun sets in Miami or alongside the icy Alaskan glaciers, which is awesome and really spices up your workout. Hydrow uses a crew of directors, producers, and videographers to film these workouts from the perspective of the rower on the water.

User-friendly interface

Compared to the older Hydrow rowers, the latest Hydrow Arc Rower screen is bigger and better (24” HD display) with superior speakers and improved memory capacity. 

Hydrometrics and AI feedback: What sets the Hydrow Arc apart?

The hydrometrics strength-measuring system is the main feature that sets this machine apart, and while it isn’t as detailed or nuanced as a human coach, it does feel like a helpful, high-tech AI coach on the screen. You just click “Tap for HydroMetrics” on your workout stats screen. The Hydrow Arc learns from your activity history to further personalize your recommendations over time. The AI can also detect typical errors in your form and deliver corrections, though sometimes the feedback feels a little repetitive.

Precision, power, and endurance

• The power score analyzes your explosiveness from your seven best rowing strokes.
• Your endurance score is a measurement of your cardio strength based on your best five-minute rowing effort. 
• Your precision score measures your stroke accuracy against the perfect rowing stroke. For example, your Hydrow Arc might say: “Nice work, you hit your highest Precision score yet! Your strokes per minute match well with the athlete’s pace.”

This interesting info is all neatly packaged and delivered to you along with customized guidance. Your Hydrometrics Index (HMI) is basically a composite of your precision, power, and endurance scores over a rolling 30-day period. Keep in mind that you won’t get hydrometrics scores if you’re doing a five-minute cool-down or warm-up or if you’re doing any rowing workouts that are less than five minutes.

Possible drawbacks

Upright storage kit not included

Personally, I think the upright storage kit and at least a three or six-month membership should probably have been included with the base purchase of the Hydrow Arc rower. Some other high-tech workout and gym machines don’t require a subscription at all or offer a certain number of months included with your initial investment. When I went to neatly package my rower snugly up against the wall, I tried telling it it’s not in timeout, but I realized I didn’t have the simple upright storage kit, so I couldn’t until I purchased that separately.

Can you use the Hydrow Arc without a membership?

You can use the rower without a membership, but you’ll only have access to the “just row” mode, where you can change the resistance and see basic on-screen rowing metrics like your time and stroke rate, but they won’t be saved when you finish your workout. You can also still connect the heart rate monitor via Bluetooth and watch introductory videos showing you how to use the machine. 

You won’t be able to track your progress or have access to the pre-recorded and live workouts, the app, music and audio, and the community features like the leaderboard, so it’s pretty basic. Without the subscription, you have to say goodbye to the fancy hydrometrics.

Concluding thoughts

If you don’t continue with the monthly subscription, you won’t have access to the key features that set this sleek, modern rower apart, like hydrometrics and scenic, round-the-world, on-demand workouts led by experienced athletes, so that’s something to keep in mind. From the sturdy aluminum and steel frame to the personalized hydrometrics, the Hydrow Arc Rower is an awesome, immersive machine to level up your fitness at home, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced fitness buff.

I love that there are real workouts in real places, led by elite athletes, to motivate you. If you have the subscription, you have thousands of effective workouts at your fingertips. It feels like a virtual travel experience because when you’re not able to go rowing on the open water in some of the most captivating places on Earth, you can bring them to you with the Hydrow Arc rower.