FitDesk Under Desk Elliptical

Very well-made and effective under-desk elliptical trainer and I had no trouble assembling it in about 15 minutes. I'll admit that getting it to its location under my desk and fiddling with it to get the device just right took rather longer, but it's been worth the effort. Like many exercise machines, you'll get the most out of this one if you take the time to adjust the various nuts and bolts and get everything just right. And even then, after using it for a few days, you might need to tighten and adjust a little more. (There's not an exercise machine in the world that doesn't need and benefit from being tuned up properly and regularly.)Pros:- Being right under my desk, I'm tempted simply by it being there to use it more than I do the treadmill on the other side of my home office. Much more. (I am literally pedaling right now as I type this.)- It is meant to be used sitting down, in your own office chair, so there's no 'saddle soreness' which I'd be prone to if using a standard bicycle seat type elliptical. Yes, it is entirely possible to use this from other kinds of chairs, such as when watching TV, but a recliner (especially if it rocks) would be somewhat challenging.- The range of motion is plenty to give your legs a good workout and the adjustable difficulty setting ranges from "noticeable" to "challenging." (I would not say there's an 'effortless' setting however, although it is possible the trainer might loosen up over time.) As noted in the description, the lever for this is positioned so you can use your foot and there are solid clicks to denote the different setting numbers.- The FitDesk elliptical feels solidly-built and not cheap, and when I'm not actively pedaling, the pedals can be positioned rather comfortably as a footrest. Alternatively, the pedals can be pivoted up and out of the way, but I'm trying to resist doing that so as to develop the habit of using it as much as possible.- For ergonomic reasons, my slab-and-trestle style desk has only 25 inches of clearance under it and pile carpeting below. It's close, but I have no problems with room for my legs. (Fair disclosure: I'm only 5' 4" and a little overweight but not obese.) It's possible with a lower chair I might be able to eke out another inch or two, but that's pushing the limit of what's possible. One of the top reasons I went with the FitDesk versus other any other compact elliptical is it's specifically designed not to have a large up-down motion, going instead more forward and back. Your toe may be tracing a circle up to 6-8 inches in diameter (going from the length of the crank-arms), but the back of your foot isn't doing more than flexing and your knees may be going up perhaps 2-3 inches total, if that. If you have a more standard 28-30 inch clearance desk, chance of it fitting go up considerably. (My desk is crazy-low precisely because I'm as short as I am, plus I had a major bout of RSIs a decade ago and really need to pay attention to proper arm positioning. I built this one custom for myself.)- There is a kind of foot-massager bar towards the rear which I'm given to understand you can hook your chair wheel around for added stability while pedaling, but I haven't needed it. My wheeled Aeron chair stays in place pretty well without, even atop a pressboard carpet protector.- I did need to adjust the pedal crank-arm nuts and the nuts holding the rear pedal wheels just a touch to make them looser because they were too tight to start with. However, after using the trainer for a while, I'd imagine they may loosen through use enough to need to be re-tightened. I did hit all the rotating joints with some WD-40 and also sprayed the wheel deck (the black metal part) with some silicone. (Other folks have said furniture polish such as Pledge also works for the plate and rubber wheels, but I'd still use WD-40 or 3-in-1 oil on the metal joints and bearings.) The thing is pretty near silent at this point, with just a very gentle and almost inaudible whoosh noise when I'm pedaling. As with any exercise device, I do expect to have to do a little preventive maintenance now and then, mostly lube but also occasionally to retighten the nuts and fasteners.- There's a 30-day no questions asked return policy (provided the unit is sent back in refurbishable condition) and a really remarkable 3 year parts replacement guarantee. (The guarantee doesn't include the pedals themselves, but replacements if needed are available and probably wouldn't cost too much.)Cons:- To be honest, the device is a little long. My desk is 36" deep and the front end of the trainer still sticks out about 2 inches on the other side. I'd say if you have a desk up against a wall or do not have at least about 6-8 inches vertical clearance under the back-panel of your desk, the FitDesk Elliptical may not fit. (My desk uses a trestle, so the rear height isn't an issue, and I'm in the middle of my room with lots of space out the back so the sticking out is also not a problem for me. However, my spouse in another home office room here is up against a wall and has a short 30" prefab desk, so there's no way this device will fit there.)- Same thing if you are really big and/or the tops of your thighs are already brushing the underside of your desk or center drawer in the desk. Trouble is, it may be difficult to really know for sure until you actually get the trainer whether it will fit or not. I'd say as a general guideline, if you can't get at least 30" forward clearance at ground level from where your hands are right now (i.e., just above your knees, atop your desk), you may not be able to get the FitDesk elliptical to fit far enough under your desk to use it comfortably. As for space between your legs and the underside of your desk, only a few inches are needed.- If you want to have the monitor on your desk (which is a nice feature, really), the cord provided for between it and the trainer is about 2 feet shorter than it ought to be. However, it is a standard 2-wire 1/8" male/female (mono) extension cable and so can be easily modified and/or replaced with something longer.- I found the instructions about the monitor in the manual to be a little confusing, particularly in that they did not mention what the 'Set' button does nor what the unit of measures are. Some are obvious, like Time (minutes:seconds) and CAL (Calories). Speed appears to be an estimate of Meters/second, while Distance (DIST) is kilometers (2 decimal accuracy) and Odometer (ODO) is also in kilometers (but no decimals). I believe someone did the math and it turns out the FitDesk is calculating cranks as if you are riding a 26" wheeled bicycle.More about the monitor:- As the manual says, the display shuts off after about 10 minutes of no detected activity, but as long as the battery is still good, it does keep remembering your current progress.- When in Scan mode (default), the monitor advances to each category of measure (time, speed, distance, odometer, calories, then back to time) about every four to five seconds.- The Mode button, if pressed once, stops the scanning at the currently displayed measure. This is the only time the Reset button will reset the displayed value to zero. If you press Mode again, it goes back to scanning, starting at the next displayed measure. Using the Mode button you can advance to whatever number you want to see, although it takes two presses each time (Scan, stop, scan, stop, etc.)- There is no reset everything function, and the Reset button only works (1) on the value currently displayed and (2) only if the monitor is not currently in Scan mode. (See the note below about the odometer, as it works differently.)- The Set button isn't documented. As far as I can tell, the Set button only works when the display is showing Time or Distance (DIST), and what it does is let you set a target time or distance value that instead of the default counting up, counts down. This could be useful if, for example, you want to be sure you get in at least 90 minutes or 10km worth of exercise in a day. The monitor, as you pedal, will gradually count down your set value, then when you reach zero will go back to counting time or distance upward. If distance or time are already greater than 0 and you press Set, the value goes up to the next whole-number value. For example, say you were pedaling up from 0:00 time and it showed 3:45 (3 minutes, 45 seconds). If using Set, when you press the button once, it will go up to 4:00, but thereafter count backwards (down) from four minutes until reaching zero. After reaching zero, it counts forward again.- The Set button in Time mode increments upward in one minute intervals. In Distance mode, it increments by 0.1km. It only goes up, not down. To reduce a set value, press Reset to put it back to zero and then use Set to increment back up again. (The monitor just counts down the set value; it doesn't flash or sound an alarm or anything when it hits 0. There is also no back-light on the monitor's LED screen, so you may want to position it somewhere well lit.)- The odometer (ODO) cannot be reset using the buttons. However, if you want to zero that out, you can remove the battery (AA size, just one), wait a few seconds, then put it back in. After that, everything will be back to zero again, including the odometer. If there's one feature the monitor does not have that I think it should, it would be a 'Reset Everything' button, without having to fiddle with the battery and/or multiple button presses to clear the numbers. Or just be able to hold down the existing Reset button for several seconds to achieve the same thing. But it doesn't.Just Is:- No, this trainer is not meant to be used while standing. I'm not saying it'd be impossible, but I'd have concerns about stability as well as the side-to-side strength of the plastic pedals. I could easily see one snapping off at the bolts if subjected to a sufficiently hard sideways twist.Other:- I did have one small problem with the FitDesk Elliptical, in that it arrived lacking one not-essential but highly desirable part, and that was the little black metal spider-shaped desk stand for the monitor. Monitor yes; stand no. I scoured the box and packing and it just wasn't there. Well, one email to FitDesk customer service and I was corresponding with the guy who invented the device. He's a small business owner who is highly motivated to keep his customers happy if at all possible and less than a couple days later I received the the replacement stand via Priority Mail. Contacted Thursday, the stand arrived Monday. Major kudos for that. I even mentioned in our back and forth correspondence my thoughts about a possible future variant model which would be shorter in length, to fit under less-deep desks, and he told me he'd already been thinking along those lines as he refines his product.On edit: A reviewer from May of last year (Pantzilla) referred to a retaining clip popping off the pedal. I see that the FitDesk folks did reach out to try to resolve the problem at the time, but I wanted to mention there appears to have been some redesign in the interim. The pedals are actually held on to the crank arm extensions by two strong bolts each now, and the extensions to the crank arm axles with more bolts. No retaining clips. They're not going to just pop off.Would I buy this again? Absolutely. Like I said, we'd have two here if it was just shorter depth-wise, but I'm very happy with mine. I can feel the sore-muscle burn in my legs from ankle to hip -- sore in a good way. We're snowed in just now and I have a fair amount of desk work to do, but it's really nice for a change for that not to equal "unavoidably sedentary for weeks."

Easy to assemble. Easy to use. I can always say both of these statements for FitDesk products AND their customer service is fantastic.

For me, this is a 3 1/2 star review., but could have been a 5 star review. Please note that I bought this one at full price.After looking at reviews of all the under desk ellipticals and comparing videos, I ordered my FitDesk Under Desk Elliptical based on the smoother motion it had than other under desk ellipticals.Edit: If your FitDesk Under Desk Elliptical has too much resistance, you can try two things first - loosen the nuts on the outside of the pedals and if your wheels are too tight as mine were, you can loosen those nuts, too. Now back to the review.It arrived partly assembled, and while the base is a bit challenging to put on, it's not crazy. When built, the elliptical seemed nicely made - nicer than my daughter's under desk elliptical from another brand or my current mini bike. The motion was smooth and silent, but at the lowest resistance, it was pretty challenging - we measured it as having 10 pounds of resistance, going up to about 12 pounds at the top of the resistance. Ten pounds is pretty stiff at a lowest resistance, so I contacted FitDesk.After talking and emails, they had us loosen the bolts on the pedals, and please note that the pedals arrived bolted on, so this was how it arrived in box from the factory. That did lower the resistance to about 6 pounds of resistance, but it was still the stiffest under desk elliptical I've tried, and since several people on Amazon say the lowest resistance is very low, I knew this wasn't typical. FitDesk told me to return it to Amazon, that perhaps I'd do better with an underdesk bike as all ellipticals have some resistance. I know that, and so do all quality bikes - this elliptical right now has about double the resistance of my daughter's Stamina InMotion E1000 at its lowest and also a different model I tried used. My husband discovered that the wheels were very tight - they mostly weren't turning as I used it, but it was easy to adjust by loosening the bolts.Something I wanted to mention is that this elliptical is longer than my desk is deep. I have a fairly typical home office desk, about 23 inches deep, but the FitDesk Under Desk Elliptical is a bit longer than 30 inches. I wasn't actually planning to use it at my desk, so this wouldn't be an issue for me, but do measure your desk's depth if you plan to use it while working.Since we recently made several Amazon returns, including a non-working treadmill, we would have liked to have a new resistance module sent to us - I've read reviews of other companies doing this other warranty, but it's true that most companies use Amazon returns as their quality control, so this isn't unusual. I was disappointed at their final email, where they put the issue on me rather than the unit. Six pounds of draw is a lot for the lowest level on a home unit, and possibly too much if you've had knee surgery or are rehabbing your knees or ankles.Here's the TL;DR summary - nicely made elliptical, quiet and smooth, and I paid full price; I didn't get it through the Vine program. Longer than some desks at just over 30 inches. Although some on Amazon say this unit has almost no resistance at the lowest level, even after trying FitDesk's fix, mine has more resistance than it should have. They recommended we return it. It was otherwise exactly what I was looking for. I know I'm an outlier since others say their lowest resistance is so light, so if you don't mind risking a return - always a possibility with any product - this one is nice and is definitely worth a shot if it fits under your desk or you plan to not to use it at a desk.UPDATE 1 1/2 years later...My legs are stronger, so I no longer find that 6 pound resistance painful. Obviously the eliptical is still much longer than my desk is deep, so I can't use it as an underdesk eliptical. It doesn't squeak or groan, the motion is still pretty smooth, but it's more like pedaling a bike with small crank arms than using an eliptical.