I've had water-type rowers of different brands for almost 20 years. They were all the sub $500 ones since I did other cardio workouts. Now that I'm older, I've locked into only rowing as cardio so wanted to upgrade to something nicer and smoothers. The requirement was obviously for it to be a water-type rower, but also have an online component. I've had the Ergatta Lite now for a month and have made some modifications to it:
1) my home gym has ethernet ports, so I'm connected via cable instead of Wi-Fi
2) due to my broad shoulders, I upgraded the handle to the 17" (wider than the stock 15" handle) from waterrower and it has made rowing much more comfortable
3) I swapped out the foot straps to 2" wide Velcro to better hold my feet in to allow for more stable hard push offs
The fun motivation aspect of the Ergatta programs is really great, as I can't just focus on rowing with music or the TV, alone. My wife has always enjoyed "just rowing" on prior rowers but I'm glad we can still track each others' progress and ability via separate profiles. Only thing I would improve is stabilization of the screen when rowing at max effort, although when you're rowing that hard you're really only focusing on finishing the program and not admiring the graphics.
