For an exercise bike with a giant screen on it, you would think Peloton would give you an easy way to watch movies while you pedal. But until recently, the screen was just for workout-related content. Some Peloton users—including myself—have found that there is a Netflix app already secretly enabled on the Bike. Here’s how to turn it on.
First, a caveat: We don’t know how widely available this app is, or whether Peloton might remove it without notice. Peloton has been beta-testing an “entertainment” option on their rides, but so far it has only offered YouTube TV (different from regular YouTube). Beta users were briefly able to watch Prime Video, but that option has since been removed. There’s reason to hope that Netflix will soon be added to the Entertainment options, however.
Don’t have a Peloton yet?
How to watch Netflix on your Peloton
There are potentially a few ways to access Netflix on your Peloton. One older hack is to open a browser that’s built into the system for debugging; you can get to netflix.com through that. But the new Netflix app seems to be available in one of two ways.
First, the one that many users are saying works for them (but didn’t work for me):
Tap the settings menu in the top right of your screen.Go to Apps.Look for the Netflix app, and tap the icon to open.I found the app this way, but couldn’t open it from this menu. (Tapping it did nothing, and there was no button to open the app.)
But here is what did work for me. It’s similar to the browser trick, but ends up revealing an actual Netflix app that shows your cycling stats alongside the movie you’re watching:
Log in to your Peloton as usual.Tap the three-dots menu in the bottom right corner of the screen, and select About.The About screen appears as a white rectangle in the middle of your screen. Tap the bottom right corner of this rectangle repeatedly. Tap tap tap tap tap...A new, black, screen will appear. I saw two icons: the system browser, and a Netflix app. Tap this app to start it.Here’s a video showing what I mean:
How to access Netflix app on Peloton
Once you start the app, you’ll need to log in to your existing Netflix account, and then you can watch shows and movies as usual. A vertical bar appears on the right side of the screen with your cadence, resistance, the amount of time you’ve been pedaling, and so on. (You’ll have to hit “start” to begin recording a ride.)
Photo: Beth Skwarecki
I watched a 30-minute video through the app last night, an episode of a show that looked like it was going to be about archaeology but that continually implied that Gobekli Tepe was built by some mysterious advanced civilization from the stars. (It was not Ancient Aliens, but some copycat show that really should have forgotten the aliens and told us more about Gobekli Tepe, which is an extremely cool place with a lot of stuff known about it and a lot unknown.)
Screenshot: Peloton
By the end I had an “Entertainment” ride in my workout history, complete with a graph of my output and all the usual metrics. The older hack to watch Netflix through a browser didn’t save your workout or give you metrics during the ride. So if you’ve been wanting to binge your favorite shows while riding the bike, check whether you have the secret Netflix app enabled.
