Hydrow are new on the scene since 2019 and have a growing community of users that enjoy Hydrow’s unique guided on-water workouts as well as the competitive nature of their immersive online training platform. The Hydrow Wave is Hydrow’s latest connected experience rowing machine which came out in August 2023 as a cheaper, lighter and smaller version of their flagship Hydrow rowing machine.
Ergatta were also founded in 2019 and gets its name from a clever mix between regatta and ergometer. Ergatta looked to bring a new gamification spin to rowing as an alternative to the popular instructor led style workouts. It is important to understand the differences between the Hydrow Wave VS Ergatta, when choosing between these high-end connected experience rowing machines as they both offer a quite different style of workout experience.
Hydrow Wave VS Ergatta Specs
| Hydrow Wave | Ergatta | |
| Weight | 102 lbs | 103 lbs |
| Portability | Stands | Stands |
| Size | 80″ L x 19″ W | 86″ L x 23″ W |
| Resistance Type | Magnetic | Water |
| Resistance Levels | 50 – 300 | self-regulated* |
| Maximum User Weight | 375 lbs | 500 lbs |
| Monitor | 16″ HD Touch Display | 17.3″ HD Touch Display |
| Power Requirement | Power Outlet | Power Outlet |
| Subscription Cost | $44/Month | $29/Month |
| Warranty | 5yr frame, 1yr parts | 5yr frame & 3yr parts |
| Price | Check on Amazon | Check on Ergatta.com |
Build Details
The Hydrow Wave features an aesthetic slick minimalist black aluminum and steel frame with a thermoplastic polymer body. It has a stainless steel track and polyester webbing strap for a quiet and smooth rowing experience. The Hydrow Wave comes in 6 different colors orange, yellow, blue, green, black and now pink. The Hydrow Wave is a slimmer and lighter rowing machine than their original premium Hydrow rowing machine (30% smaller footprint), which is great for smaller home gym spaces.
The Ergatta rowing machine has to be one of the most aesthetic and beautifully designed rowing machines that exists out there. The Ergatta rowing machine features a stunning American cherry wood frame that is hand made by WaterRower who have been making wooden water resistance rowing machines since the 80’s.
Both the Hydrow Wave and Ergatta offer comfortable ergonomic seats, soft easy grip handles with quiet nylon straps and adjustable footrests. The great thing about rowing machines as home gym cardio equipment aside from the fact they give you a great full body workout, is that they don’t take up a lot of space in your house. You can easily stand both of these rowing machines to save space.
Good and bad points of the Hydrow Wave build:
+ Good rail length for taller users
+ Great range of resistance levels from 50 to 300
+ Great for smaller spaces (80″ L x 19″ W)
+ Magnetic resistance offers very quiet rowing experience
+ Comfortable wide foot placement
– Seat rollers are quite noisy on the Hydrow Wave
– An additional anchor is recommended for vertical storage, sold separately
– Unknown how much replacement parts cost for the Hydrow Wave and are they likely to be expensive or difficult to replace outside of warranty
Good and bad points of the Ergatta build:
+ Able to also be used without power / internet (without rowing metrics)
+ Looks like a piece of furniture rather than exercise equipment
+ Natural soothing, meditative and relaxing water noise whilst rowing
+ Quiet to use as wood absorbs noise
+ Water resistance offers very smooth and realistic experience
+ Durable
+ Replacement WaterRower parts available
+ Good rail length for taller users
+ Easy to move and stand upright to save space
+ Great for heavier users (500lbs max weight capacity)
+ HiRise adapter kit available as an accessory to raise the height of the Ergatta from WaterRower (great for those that may have hip mobility issues)
+ USA Made
+ Hand Made
+ Aftermarket slides can be purchased making it dynamic
– Foot placement is close together
– Handle is narrow (can be upgraded)
– Can be more hassle adding/removing water for resistance changes
– Water tablets needed every 6 months to keep tank clean
Display
The Hydro Wave features a 16″ HD touch display, which is a great size for an immersive on-water rowing experience. Its front facing speakers deliver a crisp engaging sound. It also features Bluetooth for wireless connectivity to your headphones or home theater system.
The Ergatta features an immersive 17.3″ High definition, interactive touchscreen, and collapsible arm for storage. Ergatta also features Bluetooth for connecting heart rate monitors or audio.
The Experience
The biggest difference between the Hydrow Wave VS Ergatta aside from the build differences e.g. aluminum vs wood frame and magnetic vs water resistance, is the software and training style that each provide. Both the Hydrow Wave and Ergatta are great indoor rowing machines for beginners right through to experienced rowers and both machines offer a smooth and realistic rowing experience which is great for training off-water.
Hydrow
Hydrow are considered the ‘Peloton’ of rowing. They have exceptional on-water rowing content. The Hydrow trainers are great and athletes themselves and workouts being filmed on-water creates a truly immersive experience. Classes are shot from different locations across the globe and include great scenery.
With a bunch of variety of personalities, workout formats, and intensities, you can tailor the app to your preferences and needs. This also includes strength, stretching and mobility videos. The app is built so you can craft together warmups, workouts, cool-downs, and stretching or mobility sessions as you want. Hydrow tried to emulate rowing on water as much as possible to give you what would seem like an immersive on-water rowing experience. Hydrow is great for the average person to jump on into an instructor led session and have an engaging workout that will keep them fit.
Hydrow are constantly updating and improving their app and are always adding new content and new classes to try. The Hydrow membership makes it fun to compete with other rowers. There are live workouts which you can join and weekly races you can participate in. Hydrow do a great job of keeping you engaged and motivated.
Features:
- 4000+ Great live and on-demand “fitness class” style workout videos incl. rowing, strength and conditioning, stretching, Pilates, yoga and mobility
- On-water immersive experience with professional athletes
- Exclusive milestone rewards
- Unlimited workout profiles for household members to also track their workouts
- Live in-workout leader board and weekly racing challenges
- Automatically recommends your next workout based on your workout history
Ergatta
Ergatta has a beautiful smooth flowing resistance right from the beginning to the end of the stroke which is created by Ergatta’s water flywheel. There is also the psychological benefits of rowing with a water resistance rower. The sound of the water is meditative and can be a relaxing unwind after a busy day of work. Ergatta doesn’t offer instructor led classes but instead Ergatta gives you a fantastic video game like experience with data visualizations to help you to progress with your rowing performance.
Ergatta includes unique beautifully designed and constructed games and programs to follow which are tailored to you based on your intensity zone metrics which have been calibrated from your first calibration row when you hop on and set up Ergatta. Workouts constantly evolve based on your progress and performance. This is a unique and powerful form of training and their workouts are fun and engaging. They do an excellent job of providing stunning visualizations for your metrics and tracking your workout data.
Ergatta is really great for someone that likes to see their metrics and data that is looking to improve their times and progress and get better with constant feedback and support. Ergatta constantly trains and challenges you. Workouts push you to hit your achievable intervals. It keeps you accountable and progressing. Ergatta provides a great platform for someone competitive that loves to challenge themselves and others.
Ergatta also have ‘open row’ mode where you can program a row for a specific distance or time or free row which includes scenic video footage from locations globally. This makes it also suitable to use as a tool for other types of mixed exercise interval training. Ergatta is great for someone that wants to get fit and progress in their rowing in an efficient and effective way.
Features:
- Race workouts: choose users to race against or race against yourself or let Ergatta select it automatically based on your intensity zone metrics. Race workouts can be chosen based on duration, distance
- Push Programs: Goal based training programs, completing sections of the program unlocks subsequent sections holding you accountable and keeping you progressing toward your goals
- Interval workouts: Use hundreds of different workouts with different lengths, intensity, focus and lengths which help you reach your targets
- Programs are curated based on your calibrated intensity zones
Pricing
At the time of writing this article the Ergatta rowing machine was $2099* and the Hydrow Wave rowing machine was $1595*.
You will also need to factor in the membership costs which is currently $29 p/m* for the Ergatta connected experience and $44 p/m* for the Hydrow membership.
The Hydrow Wave is the initial cheaper option, however the longer you keep your rower the closer the price point is due to the more expensive Hydrow membership. You can save a bit of money if you pay upfront for the Hydrow and Ergatta subscription rather than paying monthly.
For those that may already have a WaterRower, an Ergatta upgrade kit is available for purchase for $549* which includes the monitor and monitor arm as well as the other necessary pieces to connect to your WaterRower
*prices stated current January 2024
Choosing Your Indoor Rower
Which one is best for you?
When choosing between both of these high end connected experience rowing machines the biggest deciding factor apart from your build preferences is going to be which style of training experience you prefer. Would you enjoy being part of the Hydrow virtual community and benefit from having engaging and encouraging streamed on-water rowing workouts led by world class instructors? Or are you looking for a more personalized, tailored data driven workout, led by powerful visualizations and fun games that are going to challenge, train and progress you towards becoming better on the rowing machine?
Hydrow = instructor focused workouts
Ergatta = games focused workouts, data driven workouts based on your intensity zones calibrated from your performance
Benefits of both machines:
- Both Hydrow and Ergatta offer a risk free 30-day home trial.
- Both rowing machines offer the ability to have multiple workout profiles
- Both platforms have been made simple to use for the average user
- Both Ergatta and Hydrow are committed to constantly improving their platforms and increasing the content and programs
Hydrow Wave
If being part of the Hydrow virtual community and utilizing their streaming video classes and connected-fitness elements will motivate you to get on your rowing machine and workout and your goal is to get healthy and stay fit then it will be a great fit for you. You will be able to see your workout stats within the app, participate in races, have access to the leader board and have all your historical workout data within Hydrow.
When Choosing the Hydrow Wave vs Ergatta you are getting a great connected high quality immersive on-water experience as well as great coaching from experienced athletes and being engaged in the Hydro community.
Considerations for choosing the Hydrow Wave VS Ergatta:
+ Hydrow also offers Circuit Training, Pilates, yoga, strength, and conditioning training videos to follow along to as well as rowing.
+ With Hydrow you also get access to their mobile app which means you can also benefit from training away from your rowing machine like on vacation.
– When choosing the Hydrow Wave VS Ergatta you are limited when wanting to do simple interval training or time and distance rowing sessions. Ergatta accommodates for this style of training.
– Screen is in a fixed location, so you would need to perform Hydrow yoga and mobility sessions behind your rowing machine if using this screen. An alternative is using a tablet or phone.
Ergatta
Ergatta has great engaging games that include analytics, metrics and stats to keep you motivated and progressing and is modified as you go along in your workouts. This is great for people that like data. This is also why many people traditionally enjoy using a Concept2 with the PM5 vs other rowing machines as having great data and tracking keeps you motivated and progressing as well as being able to compare times against yourself and others.
The other big aspect of choosing an Ergatta rowing machine is the visual aesthetics of the machine. As it is beautifully handcrafted in American Cherry Wood it looks like a stunning piece of furniture.
Considerations for choosing the Ergatta VS Hydrow Wave:
+ Lower monthly membership ($29/m vs $44/m)
+ Workouts are highly efficient and effective
+ Aftermarket slides can turn your Ergatta / WaterRower into a dynamic rowing machine, this coupled with the sound of the water resistance gives the closest feeling to actually being on the water in a boat and is a great training tool.
+ You don’t necessarily need to be connected to power or the internet to use this rowing machine. You will not have any metrics or display but you can still jump on for a row and enjoy a natural technology free rowing experience if you so choose. With the Hydrow wave, it is required for the rowing machine to have power to be able to use it and have resistance.
Downsides for connected experience rowing machines
A few downsides to both systems is that you are unable to access any other third party rowing apps as well as apps like Netflix, Spotify, YouTube etc. So you are unable to row along to your favorite shows or music. However with Hydrow they include music in their workout videos and with the Ergatta they have different “radio stations” you can choose whilst rowing which includes different genres of music.
Another downside is that if you end your membership on both the Hydrow and Ergatta rowing machines they have very limited functionality. You get access to a limited ‘just row’ function where you will see your metrics but you are unable to program a simple time or distance rowing workout. So if you are no longer using the membership it may have been better off to purchase a standard WaterRower or Concept2 RowErg rowing machine.
Also being connected experience devices, you will always need power and an internet connection in order to use them. With the Ergatta however, you can still hop on the rower and row without power and internet for a technology free rowing session if you so wish. The Hydrow Wave needs at least power in order to be able to use the magnetic resistance.
– No access to third party apps (Spotify, Netflix, YouTube etc.)
– Very limited functionality without membership
– Power outlet and internet required
– Locked into their rowing eco system and unable to use other third party rowing apps like EXR, KinoMap, Asensei etc.)
– High end price tag and membership fees
Other Alternatives
If you are looking at having flexibility and freedom with your rowing platform and having access to other third party apps then a standard WaterRower or Concept2 RowErg rowing machine with a tablet may be the best option for you. With this option you purchase the machine itself and do not need to pay an ongoing membership unless you choose to for a particular app.
Hydrow also offer an app only membership which you can use on your tablet which includes all their instructor led content but excludes the ability to track your metrics within the app and engage in races or track your workout data.
There are also plenty of other apps that are compatible with both Concept2 and WaterRower. Below are links to find out more.
Concept2 Rowing Apps
WaterRower Rowing Apps
Another alternative option if purchasing a WaterRower, or if you already own one is getting the Ergatta upgrade and membership.
Conclusion
The Hydrow Wave is a smaller, lighter, more portable, less expensive, home friendly rowing machine than their premium indoor rowing machine. This makes it more accessible and enticing to more people in the market for a premium rowing machine with a premium connected immersive rowing experience.
The Hydrow Wave doesn’t seem to lack any features of the flagship rowing machine “Hydrow” making it a much more competitively price rowing machine at this top end range and is the initial cheaper option when comparing the Hydrow Wave VS Ergatta.
Both rowing machines look great, are well designed and built. Whether you decide to go for a personal game based rowing experience with Ergatta or be led by world class instructors on the water and follow along to the Hydrow experience you are going to have a great time and a great experience.
Whether you decide to purchase the Hydrow Wave VS Ergatta, the most important thing is making good use of it. Enjoy your rowing journey!