Sunny Health & FitnessWater Rowing Machine with Intense Dynamic Real-Time Resistance, 300 LB Capacity Water Rower Machine with Optional Free SunnyFit App Connectivity for Advanced Workout Metrics

My wife and I were thinking about buying a water rower when we tried one out in a store this winter while we were in South Carolina. The manufacturer of that machine made an "attractive" looking model with several colors of wooden frames...costing about $1000. When we returned home in NY, and the Covid 19 "Stay at Home" guidelines were instituted, I started looking online for a water rower...I came across this model which was listed as "Amazon Choice"...and less than half the price of the Waterrower. After reading many reviews and considered the price and Amazon recommendation, I ordered one on April 4th...It arrived on April 14th. I left the box in my garage and brought it piece by piece into my basement for assembly. After I ordered it, I purchased enough !8x18 mat rubber squares at Home Depot to make a padded floor for the rower on my concrete floor...mine is about 106"x55" (more than enough to accommodate the rower).Assembly was not difficult at all...it took me a little under 2 hours working alone...mainly because I was being cautious and trying to read carefully. The directions are not bad...could be more descriptive...but with care, you can figure it out quite easily. My basement ceiling is NOT quite tall enough to stand the machine upright, so I have no intention to move it around. That's no big deal to me considering where we use it...and when I saw in reviews that a few people had problems with the water leaking, it seemed to me that it was when it was stored upright. When I filled the tank to the maximum depth, it is below the seam in the top and bottom of the tank, so I'm confident that the leaking issue is not a concern when the machine is stored flat in operating position.Now, using the rower is the best part ! It is quiet and smooth...the sound of wooshing water is soothing and one can't even hear it from the rest of the house. I brought a tv into the basement to encourage us to prolong our workouts....it's not necessary to blast the volume on the tv to be heard over the rower.My wife is new to rowing but loves it and has used it every day. I find the seat comfortable enough to get a 1 hour workout without my butt hurting....something I could never do at the gym without using a folded towel to cushion the seat. Granted we've only had this machine for a week, so I can't speak about the longevity, but the solid quality at this time suggests that we will be pleased with it for a long time. Our basement has been used only for laundry and storage in the past. Now we're saying "I'm going to the gym...hope that rowing machine I like isn't taken"...:)Follow up:Six months into owning this machine:I use it EVERY day for 1 hour or more (thank goodness for Amazon Prime tv and Netflix)....changed the water in the tank this morning as recommended after 6 months...no problem. I still love the workout, the smooth operation and quality of the machine. I did drill a hole in each of the foot pedals and secured them to the frame with a flat head bolt, a washer and nut so they no longer pivot. Some reviewers complained about that pivot action...I didn't find it a problem but I do like it better now that the foot rest is in a fixed position. Sunny Health makes a great machine.

Let's be clear: I have never, in my life, rowed a boat competitively. The closest I've ever gotten was being woken up by a cockswain yelling the cadence to rowers when I was in college. Poor guys were on the water by 6 AM.I have no idea what those folks would think of this machine. For me, though, it's excellent.Set-up:The machine is relatively easy to assemble, and it comes with (very basic versions of) all the tools you'd need to do so. Sunny provided all the hardware on one vacu-sealed, labeled card. Between the manual and that card, every piece is numbered, and the illustrations in the manual make it very easy to tell what goes where. My only complaint about the illustrations is that it isn't entirely clear which end of the long support goes to the front and which way to mount the seat. Looking at an actual photo of the machine tells you the stickers go toward the back and the leg depressions go forward, so from there, everything was good to go. Using my own electric screwdriver (and otherwise using the provided tools), the time between opening the box and rowing my first stroke was about 90 minutes.I really appreciated that Sunny included both a funnel and a simple transfer pump for adding and removing water. I over-filled it at first, and the pump made it really easy to get it down to the level I wanted.OperationThe machine works great. The mechanics are very smooth, and it's very quiet while in use. The water makes a light "woosh" noise that's actually really pleasant. I set this up downstairs, away from our baby's room, but I would be comfortable using it in the room next to his without fearing that it would wake him up.I filled the bubble to level 3. A review on another site said that 6 felt like rowing in real water "with a little extra," and that's not what I was going for. At level 3, I can keep a nice slow-ish pace and build up my heart rate, or I can push harder or do intervals to really get going.The monitor is the real reason I chose this model over the cheaper magnetic model, also from Sunny. This version counts strokes per minute, and that was important to me. Online training videos use strokes per minute as a reference point, and I wanted to be able to follow along with those.Weak PointsOnly a couple of weak points on this machine:1. No place to stand a phone/tablet up. There's a depression in the front unit where you can *store* a phone (iPhone 8 Plus with an Otterbox-style case fits with room to spare), but it's horizontal so you can't watch the screen. If you plan to watch workout videos or your favorite TV show while using this, you'll have to find a way to stand your device up independent from this machine.2. The LED monitor picked up a pulse reading from somewhere even though I don't use a heart monitor. I imagine this is an issue with the heart monitor radio standard itself - interference from something else in my house. And it isn't consistent, just something clocking in at 70-ish beats per minute every now and then. No idea what it is, but not an issue for me. If you plan to use a heart monitor band that connects wirelessly to the machine, you might run into a similar issue, but I can't say that for certain.OverallI'd recommend this for anyone looking to establish/maintain a general level of fitness with an indoor machine. It's quiet, it's an efficient workout, and the price is almost unbelievable for the quality of machine that you get.