Can You Watch TV on Peloton

Ever since we got our bike in 2016, I’ve wondered if you can watch TV on a Peloton. I remember asking my daughter’s friend, a computer science major in college.

Sure, he said, I could probably hack something, since the Peloton screen or tablet is just a giant Android device. No, thanks, I replied. I didn’t want to void my Peloton warranty by messing around behind the scenes.

Can You Watch TV on a Peloton?

Fast forward a bunch of years, and guess what? The answer to the question, “Can you watch TV on a Peloton?” is a resounding yes. In the last couple of years, Peloton has been rolling out the ability to tune into streaming services via your Peloton device. I kept checking my original Peloton bike and my Bike Plus. Finally, in September, the ability to watch TV showed up on my Peloton. I was so excited that I posted the following on Facebook.

And guess what? It works on my Peloton Row, too. I don’t have a Peloton Tread but I’m guessing it will work on that device, too. Really, all of the tablets or screens are similar computer devices. So there’s no reason it shouldn’t.

Anyway, now that I have the capability to watch my favorite shows or live TV on my Peloton, I thought I’d share how you can do it, too. Again, since I only have the bikes and rower, I’m only able to walk you through on that hardware.

Of course, now you can read a book on Kindle on your Peloton, too. They just added that capability in 2024.

How to watch TV on a Peloton bike

Here are the steps you’ll take on your Peloton bike to get to the television or streaming options.

One, boot up your bike and get to your home screen. Then, look at the bottom of the screen for the icon of someone riding and the keywords “More rides.” You want to tap on that.

Two, on the next screen you’ll see four options for “classes.” They are:

• Just Ride
• Scenic Ride
• Lanebreak Ride
• Entertainment

You want to tap on the “Entertainment” option. Doing this gets you to a screen that shows what entertainment is available on your bike.

For me, it showed that I could watch the following kind of TV on my Peloton bike:

• Disney+
• Max (formerly HBO Max)
• Netflix
• YouTubeTV

I was really surprised that Hulu wasn’t one of the options or Peacock. Maybe they will be in the future, since this is all in beta. Finally, of course, you have to have paid subscriptions to each of these streaming services in order to watch TV on the bike.

Getting YouTube TV on my screen

Since we get our live and local TV through YouTube TV anyway, that was the option I chose. Pro tip: have your login credentials nearby.

We normally watch YouTube TV on our Roku TVs. I don’t have to log in each time I turn on the television. So, I couldn’t remember which email we used for the service or even the password. Thankfully, it didn’t take me too long to figure it out.

OK, moving on, when I tapped YouTube TV, I got a pop-up screen that said the following:

“Confirm navigation. You are being redirected to a third-party link. You must have your own streaming subscription to log into the 3rd party service.”

Then, my options were “Continue” or “No thanks.” Also, you can tick the box that says “Don’t show this again.”

In fact, when I went back to watch TV on my Peloton the second time, the bike remembered my login to YouTube TV. Yeah, no chasing down my password this time around.

What YouTube TV looks like on a Peloton

After that, I got to a screen that had my YouTube TV options in the center. It was framed by the normal stuff that you see on Peloton.

On the top were things like:

• Bluetooth audio
• Heart Rate monitor

Plus, there was a red button that said “Start Workout.”

Along the bottom were the regular metrics you would see in a ride. This would be:

• cadence
• resistance
• output
• distance
• speed (etc.)

However, there was no Power Zone meter. Interesting. So, on the bike, I settled on what TV I wanted to watch while I was riding before I tapped “Start Workout.” By doing this, the TV shows worked perfectly. I could watch them while pedaling and, basically, doing a Just Ride class on the bike.

Glitches need fixing

Of course, there were some bugs. For example, at the bottom of the screen was a gear shift icon, a box with “CC” in it for closed captioning and a volume control icon.

I should say I couldn’t see any of this until I was actually watching a show. And you had to tap the screen to get them to show up. Otherwise they go into hide mode.

Anyway, none of them worked, and I don’t think it was my user error.

For example, we’ve gotten used to watching TV with closed captions on. So, I wanted this same closed captions option when watching TV on a Peloton.

Nonetheless, no matter how many times I tapped the “CC” box and choose which kind of closed captioning I wanted, the words never showed up on the screen.

Another thing I played around with was watching in full screen mode. But, to be honest, the full screen didn’t look much different from the “regular” screen mode.

I’m sure if I was watching TV on the screen of the Peloton Tread Plus, which is super gigantic, it would have looked a lot different.

How to watch TV on a Peloton Row

As I mentioned at the top, the only Peloton hardware I own are two Peloton bikes and a Peloton Row. Thankfully, all of them now have the ability to watch TV on the tablet or screen.

Let me walk you through the steps I took to watch TV on my Peloton Row. It is very similar to watching TV on a Peloton bike.

One, you want to boot the equipment up, choose your profile and get to your homescreen. Then, look on the bottom of the screen for the icon of someone rowing and the word “More” underneath. Tap that.

Next, you’ll come to a screen that offers non-traditional Peloton class options. This includes:

• Just Row
• Scenic Row
• Entertainment
• Races

There are other options beyond this, but I focused my attention on “Entertainment” since that’s the one I wanted. Then, I tapped “Entertainment.”

On the next screen, I was given four TV options like on the bike. They are:

• Disney+
• Max (formerly HBO Max)
• Netflix
• YouTubeTV

Again, because we watch YouTube TV at home, on our Roku TVs, this was the option I chose for watching TV on my Peloton. I got the same “third party” warning that I got on the bike when I’d tapped YouTube TV.

Also, like the bike, you’ll see the usual metrics on the Row screen, including form assist. I’m not sure I would like form assist working while I’m rowing and watching TV.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I made the mistake of tapping “Start Workout” before selecting my show. So, the timer for the class was running, and I had the homescreen for YouTube TV. However, no matter which option I chose from that homescreen, it never gave me the option to start a specific TV program.

Final thoughts on watching TV on a Peloton

Of course, I’m going to try this again on my Peloton Row and see if it was my user error that prevented me from watching TV while rowing. However, if it turns out that the rower is simply more glitchy than my bike, then I’ll stick to the bike for watching TV on a Peloton.

One final thought: if you want to watch TV while doing a “Just Ride” on your Peloton, just set up a TV near the bike so you can watch from there. That’s the setup we have in the workout area, where we have a Roku TV mounted on the wall.

I have it this way in case I want to cast from my Peloton bike or Row to the TV. That might just be the easiest way to watch TV while riding your bike or walking on your treadmill or whatever.