Peloton App Teardown Reveals Unannounced Rowing Machine Details

Home fitness company Peloton is rumored to have a rowing machine in the works, and now it seems the company may have inadvertently confirmed that with its own Android app. A newly published teardown of the app's latest version reveals details, including codewords, hinting at a new upcoming fitness machine, one likely based on rowing.

You probably best know Peloton because of its cycling machines or, perhaps, because of its treadmills that were all over the news this summer. Many rumors over the past months have claimed the company will also launch a rowing machine, which would combine the company's tech with the traditional rowing-like exercise.

The latest version of the Peloton Android app was recently dissected by 9to5Google, finding evidence that Peloton has been updating the app with new materials ahead of an upcoming product launch.

Though there's no explicit confirmation of a rowing machine, the app includes details about how to perform an exercise that involves a "stroke" — and it's impossible to interpret that as anything other than a rowing machine. It seems the Peloton team went to some effort to disguise their work by inserting what seemed to be gibberish text in the app.

However, the 9to5Google team wisely ran the text through a Caesar cipher and decrypted it to reveal what seems to be two codenames: Mazu and Caesar. The decrypted text indicates that Peloton is working on "inspiring scenic routes" for the upcoming rowing machine. Peloton still hasn't announced a rowing machine model, though the appearance of this text in the app indicates an official launch may arrive in the near future.