Speediance Gym Monster 2 Review: The Freestanding Smart Gym That Undercuts Tonal
By The Ironnook Test Desk ·
7.8
speediance.com
The verdict
The Gym Monster 2 is the smart gym for people who rent, cannot drill into studs or want barbell, cable and rowing work from one machine. It offers more range of motion and exercises than any wall-mounted rival we looked at, for hundreds of dollars less than Tonal 2. Software polish, loud heavy sets and the 220 lb ceiling stop it short of a top score. Serious lifters should still buy a rack and plates.
Best for: Renters who want a no-drill smart gym with real variety
What we liked
Freestanding and no-drill, so it suits rentals and finished rooms
Ten pulley heights from 306 mm to 1,656 mm give a wide range of moves
Dual 800 W motors allow independent arms and chain, eccentric and constant modes
Folds to roughly 2.7 sq ft when stored, per the maker
Packages with benches and a rowing seat widen the exercise list
amp is the value pick among wall-mounted smart gyms: $1,795 with installation, a 6 ft by 2 ft panel and a plan that costs well under half of Tonal's. The price buys a 100 lb ceiling, an iPhone-only app and a recall on early units. Buy it for general fitness and hypertrophy at moderate loads, not for heavy strength work.
Tonal 2 is the best digital-resistance trainer you can buy, and it does fold a rack and dumbbells into one wall panel. But the real cost is closer to $5,800 in year one, the membership is mandatory, and the machine is a smart screen first. Buy it for space and coaching, not to save money.
The Gym Monster 2 needs no drilling, folds to a 15 inch slab and pulls up to 220 lb from two motors. We weighed it against wall-mounted rivals on range, noise and what you still pay after the sticker price.
Wall-mounted smart gyms have a quiet, expensive problem: they assume you own the wall. The Gym Monster 2 is the answer for everyone who does not. It stands on its own on a floor platform, folds when you are done and plugs into a normal outlet. Our question was whether giving up the wall costs you the workout.
Why standing on its own matters more than it sounds
Tonal 2 needs studs 16 to 24 inches apart, a ceiling of about 7 ft 10 in and an installer; our Tonal 2 review walks through that. Speediance asks for a patch of floor. Unfolded, the Gym Monster 2 measures 48 by 27.2 by 72.8 inches and weighs 172 lb, according to the maker. Folded, the width drops to 14.6 inches, which Speediance puts at about 2.7 sq ft against roughly 9 sq ft in use.
That is the entire pitch for flats, rentals and garage corners, and it holds up. Setup is described by reviewers as about an hour with no wall work. The compromise is vibration and noise at heavy loads, which we cover below.
Speediance's compact home gym page: the machine photographed with its bench, rower, bars and attachments.
More ways to pull than a wall unit allows
Two 800 W motors drive two independent arms. Ten pulley heights run from 306 mm to 1,656 mm, so cable fly, face pull, curl and overhead work are all possible from one position, which a fixed-arm design cannot copy. Resistance tops out at 220 lb (100 kg) on the standard model, with four modes: standard, chain, eccentric and constant.
Maker artwork for the Gym Monster 2 Basic package: upright frame and screen on a floor platform, with the accessories laid out in front.
Tonal 2 offers 250 lb in total, 125 lb per arm, and our numbers elsewhere on this site put its movement library at 340+ moves. The Speediance list is broader because of the benches, barbell work and rower. For example, the Works Plus adds an adjustable bench and the Family Plus adds a rowing bench too. Those extras are where the money goes.
What it really costs
The official page shows $3,079 reduced from $3,849, with Basic, Works, Works Plus and Family Plus packages. During our research it also listed 2S versions with higher resistance. Other reviewers quote $3,749 for Basic, $3,950 for Works and up to $4,499 for Family Plus, so read the checkout screen before deciding.
Speediance's own review article for the Gym Monster 2, published on its European site.
The app is the muddier part. Every source we read agreed the machine works without a paid plan, but they disagreed on what the paid plan costs. One independent review says $39 a month, another range runs to $49, so treat both as unconfirmed until you see Speediance's current price. There is a 24-month warranty on motors, screen and power supplies, with 3 and 4 year care plans at $299 and $349.
Software and daily use
The 21.5 inch 1080p touchscreen is the control panel. Speediance says the library holds 90+ scheduled plans and 1,000+ coach-curated workouts, with AI form correction and imbalance detection. We would treat those counts as marketing until you have tried a free week of the app. What matters in practice is that you can ignore the plans entirely and use the machine as a very good cable stack with a screen.
The unit has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0, plus a 20 W subwoofer in its stereo set. That is more audio than most tablets on a wall.
Where it falls short
Reviewers consistently mention noise and vibration at heavy loads. One summary says that at 150 to 200 lb the machine becomes disruptive in a shared home and that above 125 lb vibration reaches nearby surfaces. The rowing bench seat has a little play in its sliders and is the loudest part. If you live above someone, that matters more than any spec.
The 220 lb ceiling will not bother most people who want a general strength routine. It will bother anyone who already deadlifts three plates. Digital resistance also feels lighter than iron at the same number, an effect Tonal owners report as well. There are occasional software glitches, including a workout-summary bug a Wired reviewer found.
Who should buy it
Buy it if you want one machine that can do rows, presses, cable work and a bit of barbell movement, and a wall mount is off the table. Compare it with Tonal 2 if you can drill, because Tonal's software is more polished and its coaching more consistent.
Skip it if you lift heavy or live in a building with thin floors. A rack, bench and adjustable dumbbells would cost far less and make more of your effort count.
As a machine, the Trainer+ is the heaviest-hitting smart gym you can slide under a bed: 220 lb per cable, seven resistance modes, and a platform you can wheel away. It is also paired to a phone app with a steep learning curve, cable motion that testers call jerky at times, and a maker that took its storefront offline during a year of silence. Buy it only if you want that much resistance and accept the company risk.
