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Your Exercise Bike Knows a Lot About You—and It Doesn't Keep Every Secret
(www.consumerreports.org)
Why do exercise bikes need to be connected to the internet…?
this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
32 points (94.4% liked)
Privacy Guides
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If you’re a BowFlex user, however, you might be surprised to learn that the company, in its privacy policy, also grants itself the right to collect and share data on how you smell.
WTF??
Also, data collection like that should be so clear, obvious, and only enabled through an opt-in, so nobody should ever be "surprised" to find out about it!
Tonal, for example, says it stores video recordings of a user’s workout as well as data about the position and movements of their head, arms, hands, feet, legs, and torso.
Broooo???
I absolutely hate how every product is designed as a trojan horse for data collection.
So many of these features can be offloaded to local-only processes, and it kills me that users are paying for equipment, often paying for a subscription to use the platform, and then have their data used as another revenue stream.
....how does it know? Do they have smellophones now?
I came to the comments with this question. I googled it and apparently it can't smell you yet.
Which is still awful and invasive and terrifying.
Don't like that one bit.