We all know that, as Americans, we spend too much time watching TV and not enough time exercising. Some ambitious multitaskers try to have their cake and work it off, too, by setting up a stationary bike or elliptical machine in front of the television. Unfortunately, for many of us that translates into about seven minutes of sweating and then a solid hour (or more) of slouching and staring at back-to-back reruns of Yes, Dear.
Well, now there’s a solution to this problem. D Squared Technologies gives us an ingenious fitness product for killing two birds with one stone: the TV Pedaler, a portable exercise machine that plugs into your television and keeps the picture clear only for as long as you continue to pedal. It’s for the sort of people who keep a lot of low-fat ice cream in their freezer—provided the freezer is at the top of a 30-foot climbing rope.
The TV Pedaler is really nothing more than a pair of pedals attached to a small but sturdy base, and a wire that connects to your TV, which will, in theory, work only for as long as you do. (Different attachments or versions are available for PCs and video-game consoles.) The TV Pedaler comes packed in a small box, and assembly truly takes about five minutes, even if you catch yourself watching TV while you do it. There’s nothing electrical to plug in. Just connect one end of the Pedaler’s wire to your incoming cable or antenna line and the other to the input on your TV or cable box, pull up the chair of your choice and pedal away for as long as you can stomach Stone Phillips.
While this little machine shouldn’t be confused with an all-in-one home fitness center, it does manage to give you the few bells and whistles you might actually care about: A rotating knob gives you at least the illusion of adjusting the pedals’ resistance; a clear LED readout shows your speed, distance, time elapsed, distance traveled, even the approximate number of calories burned; and an override switch (which might be more honestly labeled the "I quit" button) allows you to stop exercising and, y’ know, just watch TV.
Which brings me to one minor glitch that at least
warrants mentioning: The thing doesn’t always work. Depending on your cable or satellite dish setup and the strength of your signal, the TV Pedaler may do little to disturb your reception even when your feet are nowhere near the pedals. And, let’s face it, if you’re the type of person who can rationalize not working out on any given Sunday, then you can probably rationalize watching that Raiders-Chargers game with a little video snow clouding up the screen.
Ultimately, the TV Pedaler is not a miracle machine. It can’t change what’s on TV, so a boring ball game is still a boring ball game, and Sex and the City is still a concoction of implausible stories strung together by eye-rolling puns. But I digress. The point here is that this is an inventive product that—as long as it functions properly in your own home—deserves to be called a cool gadget rather than a crazy gimmick. And, hey, imagine how good you’ll feel when the phone rings during your favorite show and you say, "Mind if I call you back? I’m exercising."
• Phone: 877.602.7332
• Website: www.d2tech.net