Keiser M Series Reviews

The Keiser M3i is a phenomenal cycling bike but they are severely lacking in their tech. I’ve had multiple issues with KeiserMSeries:
1) Session sometimes does not save, so data is lost
2) Sometimes when the data does save, and I come back to the session at a future date, all of the data actually changes. For example, I’ll do a 45 minute cycling session, and after I click on the historical data for that session it changes to something like 13 seconds. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered such a problem on any other app or software before.
3) My wife has had issues connecting her Polar HR monitor. Sometimes it connects, sometimes it doesn’t.

I was excited see KeiserMSeries, but have had problems with it in each of my workouts so far. While it appears to log time, cadence, and distance correctly, it has yet to correctly record power. Instead, it only records, at most, one minute or so of power data for my workout. For example, yesterday, I rode for 60 minutes, and power was between 260 W and 300 W for the entire ride except for a 5 minute warm-up. When I checked the workout in KeiserMSeries , it had recorded 58 seconds of power data with an average of 158 W. This is problematic because for real training power is the only useful metric. I’ve tested this on multiple M3i bikes at my gym and had the same problem.

KeiserMSeries is so broken, if I had it to do all over again, I would’ve bought a different bike. First, the bike computer shuts down your ride if you need to hop off the bike for more than 30 seconds to pee or blow you nose or whatever. So you lose all your data and start over. Second, once you have KeiserMSeries , the cross talk between the bike computer and app is almost nonsensical. It’s rare that the calorie count ever matches. And again, if you hop off the bike, the bike computer restarts and can reset app data as well. Even though KeiserMSeries indicates your ride is paused! A week ago, I lost 700 calorie ride and got credit for 1 calorie. All of this seems like an easy fix—app should always override bike computer. But Keizer seems unwilling or unable to fix it, instead expecting the quality of the bike to carry the brand. Sadly, without functional tech, it’s a dinosaur.

First, I do not use this software to watch my metrics during my workout. So I am not commenting on that aspect. The m3i already has a mounted computer with live readings. I don’t need another.

I am mostly interested in after-ride analysis of stored data and comparing my progress over time. On this later aspect the software is very sub-par. No way to do graphic comparisons between rides. No customization features. No way to export to more robust software. No way to rank rides. Extremely quirky. Almost zero instructions. Just terrible. Considering the fact that Keiser is trying to compete with Peleton, you would assume they would put ample time and energy into creating a robust companion software to enhance the appeal of the bike. And you would be wrong. I can’t imagine what they are thinking!

Love the brand. Love the bikes. I have loved KeiserMSeries until a month ago. I have an iPhone 8+, I’m running iOS 12.1. KeiserMSeries will perform normally until it’s time to end the session. I end the session and it looses the correct data. For example -It will read that I’ve only ridden 5.7 miles and I’ve actually ridden 24.6. All of the stats become similarly skewed when the session is ended. I have read other reviews, also looked online and tried the suggestion of waiting until my bike screen powered off to “end my session “ and it has not helped. I would like to use KeiserMSeries every day and I would even pay for a better version. As it stands I’m very disappointed that I will have to find another way to track my progress. Please fix so I can update my rating. Thanks 🙏

What is wrong with KeiserMSeries! It'll be fine for like three or four rides and then I'll see the readout on my machine module and then look at KeiserMSeries information on my phone and everything matches up and then once I exit and end the session everything on KeiserMSeries recorded is completely wrong from what was recorded on the module on the bike! What the heck is going on??!! I can't get this thing to consistently record ever!! I am ready to give up and simply just write down what is going on each ride via the module on the bike! I do use Bluetooth headphones occasionally but most often lately I've just been using plugin earbuds..nothing should be interfering as far as Bluetooth connection goes how can a $2000 bike have such a piece of crap app!

Okay, so I like your equipment, we have several m3i’s in our gym at work.

Several issues that need to be resolved. 1st off this needs to be able to run in the background. When we run an interval timer or music on wireless headphones this shouldn’t interfere with app recording. I’ll turn it on keep my ears where I need them to torch calories while checking and responding to emails. Only to find out it didn’t record. Huge minus. God forbid your running a class and monitoring everyone in your class only to see that your data isn’t recorder??? Hmmm.

Next up. With it not recording it doesn’t report properly to any connected devices/apps.

It looks like you can connect to Strava but that doesn’t seem to work even when recording is active the whole time. At least in the free version

Lack of connectivity to health trackers. I use a Harmon device with heart rate monitoring. Not even available. With Bluetooth connectivity one would think you could connect........

Great equipment, but app and connectivity needs huge revisions.

I’ll gladly update the review as what i see as issues are fixed.

Two huge issues with KeiserMSeries:
1. There’s no way to view trends, all you can do is see each past day individually. Am I supposed to make my own spreadsheet? What’s the point of tracking the data if you can’t see it in a useful way?
2. Doesn’t integrate with other apps except for sending ride distance and duration. (Peloton and Apple Health are the ones I’d want) I contacted the developer to request this and they argued that it wasn’t possible. This is complete BS because other apps / HR monitors do integrate. I even sent them a list of other apps that do it but they wouldn’t even agree to work on it.
If those two issues were resolved then KeiserMSeries could have a chance of being useful.

Bike is amazing, however.....

You are unable to run background apps or Bluetooth headphones while recording workouts or your data will be skewed. I just did a 1 hour workout which apparently recorded correctly upon ending my session, but when I logged onto KeiserMSeries under my rider profile all my data was changed to as if I only road 25 minutes. To make things even more confusion, my data was transferred to Strava and it said I rode for 1 hour but diluted all of my power/distance stats to as if I only rode 25 minutes. These are terrible application flaws and should be addressed. How can you advertise and charge more for a “Bluetooth capable” bike if it doesn’t work properly and you can’t run other apps on your phone simultaneously?!

Yes I’m using the latest update of KeiserMSeries, the recent iOS on my iPhone X, and a Bluetooth HR monitor. I upload the .tcx file to Strava as well. This is my second attempt to use KeiserMSeries with the M3i for data acquisition.

Our health club got in a room full of the M3i bikes. I figured this was a good opportunity to now, do power work in the club I was already paying money to every month; instead of at home on my own bike with a power meter.

KeiserMSeries is a hot mess if your bike is the only one with a ‘bike number’ which mine is. All the other ‘number zero’ bikes overload your app screen with pop up requests to start a session as you wait for the chaos to clear out and link to your saved bike number. It connects eventually but this requires me to show up to the club 15 minutes before class as I open and close KeiserMSeries several times, waiting for it to auto-connect to my bike I.D. number.

And today, it connected after the 10 minute open/close dance, but KeiserMSeries froze to the screen with all the line items of average data. I wasn’t able to swipe back to the main screen/ dashboard. Not knowing this until I got home; KeiserMSeries only recorded 3 minutes of my 60 minute workout. Not cool.

Love the bike. Disappointed in KeiserMSeries . Specific issues:

- Heart rate data not transferred to my iPhone. In the Apple Activity/Workouts all I see is “data not available”
- Average heart rate is transferred incorrectly, e.g. says 133 in Mseries app, 72 in Workouts
- Workouts transferred from the Mseries app to the Apple app are labeled “Outdoor cycling”, umh no, not on my Keiser
- Hard to get actual data from the heart rate display in the Mseries app. Doing HIIT I’d like to know details. Touching chart sometimes flashes the actual data but it’s small font, only appears momentarily and it’s mostly under my finger tip. Look at the way the HeartWatch app does workouts for a better display
- The Keiser M3i is supposed to be a Bluetooth device, but it doesn’t show up on my iPhone or Apple Watch Bluetooth devices lists so I can’t use it from other tracking apps.
- Bike controller and MSeries app are supposed to be Bluetooth compatible but they don’t support Bluetooth heart rate monitor chest straps.

Device info:

Keiser Mseries app 3.10.3
iPhone XS Max iOS 12.1.3

I was excited to see KeiserMSeries and use it for my spin classes. But I’ve had problems with it almost from the start. The biggest problem is that the data it saves is not only inaccurate but every time I open KeiserMSeries to look at history it changes the mileage. I’ve also had problems simply saving the data at the end of my workout. Yesterday it wouldn’t save at all. Sometimes it won’t connect with the bike I am on in the classroom. And it always records someone else’s heart rate (I don’t wear a monitor so it isn’t mine!) I’d love to be able to count on it to record my stats since I keep a journal off my training but I can not count on it.

At the end of each ride, after the M3i’s LED screen loses power, KeiserMSeries will prompt me to end the session. If I don’t confirm it in time (several seconds), the whole session’s data gets lost. Why is there a timeout for confirming end of session? And why deleting all captured data? I also found that if I leave KeiserMSeries running without confirming end of session, eventually it goes to a bad state in which it only shows the time is ticking but all the other meters show zero. There is no way to get out of that state except for forcing KeiserMSeries to close from IOS. I noticed the latest version is 1 year old. It’s time to get an update. By the way, can we have an Apple Watch version of this?

The ability to take an FTP test periodically helps gauge progress. The guided sessions that are tailored to your FTP results are great! KeiserMSeries is a little glitchy though and sometimes has trouble starting up or pauses mid ride. If you open another app, your final data will tracked will be influenced by the time period you ran KeiserMSeries in the background, which is annoying. My biggest gripe though is with the calorie count. Since they have incorporated the Polar heart rate monitor readings in KeiserMSeries and have details from the rider profile, you wouldn’t think it would be too difficult to get accurate calorie counts. It is unclear what if any rider specific data is taken into consideration in the calorie count. Please address this. I wore my Suunto today out of curiosity and there was quite a disparity!!

The logout issue still happens on a regular basis. The interface to enter your password is not like other interfaces, chiefly being incompatible with any password manager. App must run in the foreground otherwise it won’t record right and your stats will be off in a detrimental fashion. It does have some basic workouts that are great for me, but there are a lot of annoyances. I use an H10 and polars app also gives a really different calorie count than keiser. It’s been 2 years since an update, might be time to give the growing keiser community a better app experience.

Bike is great, KeiserMSeries not much. Without notice, KeiserMSeries logs user off after each ride. Logging on again requires entering user profile from scratch. Does reliably connect with Strava, it only if rider is properly logged on to the Keiser app. Fortunately KeiserMSeries does save ride data, which will upload at subsequent logon. Best use of KeiserMSeries is on iPhone as adjunct display because display built into the bike is almost unreadably dim: backlight is a joke. Also tricky is saving data at the end of a ride. Keiser recommends double tap; I find a long press on the designated area works more reliably. In short, the bike is well designed; KeiserMSeries isn’t.

I’m enjoying KeiserMSeries so far but there are a couple of things that could help make it better. My first thought is that I would like a start and stop button for the workout sessions.

It does most of it automatically, except when it doesn’t and then the data is lost.

I would also like to see better sharing and a more comprehensive home screen without too much flipping. Thank you!

Works on 2- or 3-year-old iPad & new iPhone. Syncs with Polar heart monitor, without any problems.

Works great, but would _really_ like just one feature added ... it would be wonderful if two rider profiles could be entered, so my better half and I could both use the easier-to-read iPad (guess which one I got).

Could then save each ride to the correct profile (and a way to move it to the other profile if some user goofs).

KeiserMSeries is definitely worth using with your keiser machine. Although recently (within last month) it has been pausing session about 32-33 min into a workout. Annoying. But a shift in gears usually “fixes” it without losing my whole session. The only other suggestion I have is either to add more guided sessions or give the user the capability to build or modify sessions.

Overall thought I would highly recommend KeiserMSeries - it is stable, easy to use with my M3i, and works very well.

I waited in great anticipation for my bike once I placed the order. And I can tell you it has been the best piece of exercise equipment I’ve ever owned. I’ve been working out at home and I’m gyms for most of my life time and this bike is amazing.
It’s smooth and quiet. It’s sturdy even when I stand to pedal. And KeiserMSeries tracks all my activity so accurately. It’s easy to use and fun to watch while you ride.
KeiserMSeries also makes me work harder because I can see where I need to be. It allows me to compete with myself.
And KeiserMSeries immediately hooked up with my bike and the heart monitor.
I just can’t say enough good things about KeiserMSeries and the bike