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Peloton has relaunched its Tread treadmill, which the company and the Consumer Product Safety Commission jointly recalled earlier this year.
On May 5, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the at-home connected-fitness company Peloton issued a voluntary recall of the high-end Peloton Tread+ treadmill following more than 70 reported incidents (29 of them involving children), including one child’s death. Peloton has stopped the sale of the Tread+ and, along with the CPSC, advises owners to stop using the machine immediately.
If you own a Tread+, you have a few options: Owners have until November 6, 2022, to return their treadmill for a full refund; anyone returning their machine after that date will receive a partial reimbursement. Peloton says that people who do not want to return their Tread+ for a refund can request to have it moved to a room not used by kids or pets free of charge. Meanwhile, the company implemented a software update called Tread Lock to the treadmill’s operating system, which locks the Tread+ automatically 45 seconds after use and calls for a unique four-digit passcode to unlock it.
Owners who do not pay for a membership and opt instead to use the machine’s Just Run feature, which allows the Tread+ to be used like a regular treadmill, can once again use the function (along with Tread Lock) without a paid membership. (Earlier this summer, the company required Tread+ owners to pay the membership fee in order to use the feature, and some owners expressed their frustration.)
According to an “urgent warning” the CPSC issued on April 17, Peloton’s Tread+ “poses serious risks to children for abrasions, fractures, and death.” We reviewed this treadmill in 2018, before the news of dangerous incidents or recalls; at the time, the model was called simply the Tread. In April 2021 the CPSC said it had received “multiple reports of children becoming entrapped, pinned, and pulled under the rear roller” of the treadmill, and it noted that the nature of one reported incident suggests that “the hazard cannot be avoided simply by locking the device when not in use.” The agency also published a video of a child being pulled under the treadmill (the child escapes, but the video is likely to be disturbing to some viewers). “Reports of a pet and objects being sucked beneath the Tread+ also suggest possible harm to the user if the user loses balance as a result,” the CPSC statement continues.
“This doesn’t happen with other treadmills,” an official familiar with the matter told The Washington Post on condition of anonymity in April. “It is a different hazard pattern than is typically seen.”
Separately, the CPSC and Peloton also recalled and stopped the sale of the lower-priced Peloton Tread due to the potential of the touchscreen to detach and fall. The Tread—which is once again available for purchase as of the end of August 2021—had been sold as a “limited invitation-only release” from around November 2020 to March 2021. (While about 125,000 Tread+ models were sold, only about a thousand Treads were sold in the US; no injuries related to the recalled Tread treadmill have been reported.) Tread owners are also advised to stop using their machine. Owners can contact Peloton for a full refund or wait for a complimentary inspection and repair.
In mid-April, Peloton refuted the CPSC’s claim that its treadmills cannot be used safely, before changing course with the announcement of the recalls on May 5. In a statement, Peloton’s founder John Foley apologizes for not acting sooner: “I want to be clear, Peloton made a mistake in our initial response to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s request that we recall the Tread+. We should have engaged more productively with them from the outset. For that, I apologize.”
According to the company’s FAQ page, Peloton is developing modifications to the Tread+ to address its safety issues, which will be “presented to the CPSC and if approved, will be introduced into the product before Peloton resumes sales.” We reached out to Peloton, but the company could not provide a timeline as to when the Tread+ would once again be available for purchase.
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