It’s hard to feel motivated to stay physically active during a long-term quarantine brought on by a global pandemic. You can’t go to a gym. You can barely go outside. Sure, you could run a marathon on your balcony, should you choose the path of lunacy.
Back when life was normal, my daily workouts mostly consisted of shoving my way onto various types of public transit. But now, even that joy is gone. We nonessential workers have been locked inside for weeks, and will likely be stuck here for months. Atrophy is setting in as my body is rendered more gelatinous each passing day.
Luckily, we tech-minded humans have at our disposal a crop of connected devices meant to replicate the experience of going to the gym or attending a workout class. Many people are hopping on Peloton's stationary bike. Others are choosing this device I tested, called Mirror.
Mirror is a tall, obsidian monolith that, as the name implies, is also an actual mirror. Shiny surface, bounces light into your eyeballs, all that stuff. If we’re reviewing the Mirror just as a mirror, it gets a perfect score. (10/10: Does reflect.) It's meant to blend into the decor of your living room where, as a bonus, it can make you feel guilty every time you catch a glimpse of yourself not working out. And you will feel guilty if you don't use it, since it costs $1,495.
There is, of course, more beneath the surface. Flip a switch at the bottom of the unit and that mirror becomes a screen, ready to display on-demand workout videos. Mirror’s closest competitor is probably the Tonal, a sort of vertical Bowflex that mounts onto the wall and unfolds its metal appendages into whatever configuration the selected workout demands. The Mirror is simpler. You can mount it on the wall as well, but it also comes with a stand. I just leaned mine against the wall at a slight angle and it worked great—no stud finder required.
The one-bedroom apartment I share with my girlfriend is small, to the point where just the idea of adding in a bookshelf makes me claustrophobic. The Mirror is as thin as a flatscreen TV and takes up very little space. The light footprint is a huge plus for people who don’t have room for bulky exercise equipment.
At the time I started testing it, the company offered free home installation with each purchase. A couple of friendly dudes from a logistics company lugged the box into my apartment and did all the work of installing the Mirror and connecting it to my Wi-Fi network. Since then, of course, a plague has forced us into isolation. Mirror has temporarily suspended its installation service for the sake of social distancing. The installation didn’t seem complex, but just know that if you buy one, you will have to hook it up yourself.
More important than its handsome looks, the Mirror is a vessel for content. Pair the device with the Mirror app and you have access to thousands of workout sessions, available on demand. Professional trainers appear onscreen against a pure black background to lead you through classes that run somewhere between 15 minutes to an hour. You can work out along to Mirror's curated playlists or your own Spotify account, and adjust the volume of both the music and the instructor's voice.