Motivation

How Passport Player Transformed My Home Workouts

Product Review: Passport Player with Virtual Active Technology

The interactive workouts of the future are today’s reality. Virtual Active technology provides the experience of exercising in a beautiful setting with a changing terrain that mimics selected workouts. The Passport Media Player by Horizon Fitness offers a convenient and responsive way to experience Virtual Active Technology using a home television or computer. I recently experienced this while trying the Passport Media Player at home with the U7 Upright Exercise Bike. The set up for the Passport Media Center with my U7 bike was easier than I imagined. Using a simple HDMI port on my television (Horizon even included the necessary cable!), I was able to quickly bring the home screen up and select options using the included remote. With the Passport Media Player and the U7 bike in the same room, the Passport system immediately recognized my bike and allowed me to develop a planned workout. The ease of set-up for the Passport system made me more likely to use the device regularly, without needing to dedicate valuable shelf space and media ports in my already active living room. While set up of the Passport player was amazingly simple, the footage and experience are impressive. The basic model includes New Zealand, Vancouver, and the French Riviera, with enough landscapes to keep my workouts inspired for a long time. Adding in the available packs B and C provides enough, easily accessed footage, to provide a new answer to the question, “where do I want to go today” for weeks to come. The integrative experience with my U7 cycle, provided on-screen feedback regarding my speed, cadence, heart rate, and elapsed time, which made it easier to enjoy the scenery of my work out without constantly looking down at the console. While the integrated experience was nice, I was also able to use a very simple manual option that displayed footage without the on-screen displays and feedback … a nice feature when I’m working out with my husband or for days that a quick and simple start is all I want. Overall, I found the Passport Media Player to be an amazingly simple way to increase my motivation and focus on the days I work out at home. The system worked well in responding to and integrating my planned workouts and the footage was absolutely stunning, leaving me looking forward to my next chance to “play” with my bike and experience the beauty of a new location. Heading into the dog days of summer, the inspiring landscapes of the Passport Media player and the air conditioned comfort of my living room have been a motivating combination to keep me interested in continuing my home workouts.
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  About the writer: Joli Guenther is a certified personal trainer, yoga instructor and clinical social worker practicing in and around Madison, Wisconsin. Learn more about Joli.