EGYM Branded Member App: What Is New?
Branded Member App Updates
This is an overview of all product updates of the Branded Member App.
Please note that including these features into your own app might require an update and republishing of your app to the App Stores. Some features might only be available as part of the "Advanced" or "Pro" versions.
2024 - Q1
Benefit: Members can now use the Face or Touch ID function on their iPhone to log in to the gym app with their account details.
Note: In order for your members to be able to use this feature, it must first be activated in the club app settings.
Added value: Members no longer have to remember their login password, which can avoid additional service requests from your staff and improve the gym member experience.
2023 - Q2
2023 - Q2
Benefit: By integrating the popular Matrix Sprint 8 program into the Smart Cardio workout experience, members benefit from an enhanced user experience within the Branded Member App. The collected workout data from the Sprint 8 Workout will now be incorporated into the following features of the Branded Member App:
- Challenges
- Training goals (e.g. calories, distance, length)
- Activity feed
Value: With the additional integration of the Sprint 8 Workout program, members will experience a more holistic workout experience on the cardio training floor. This increases usage of specific in-app features and leads to even higher member motivation.
Background: We would like to inform gym owners who are currently still using the "legacy" version of the activity feed feature in their Branded Member App that we will no longer support it in the next quarter (end of Q3). Members will receive the new version of the activity feed feature with an automatic app update of their Branded Member App.
Old Activity Feed Design:
New Activity Feed Design:
Added Value: With the new version of the activity feed feature, members will benefit from several improvements right away compared to the old version:
- New UI: We've completely redesigned the feature's UI, both visually and functionally, to ensure a seamless and consistent look and feel throughout your Branded Member App. The new activity feed section not only features new design elements, but also delivers simplified navigation and interaction with the activity feed.
- More personalization of the feed: From now on, new events will be grouped by people, rather than by activity as before. This makes the feed much more personalized and it's easier to track what activities other people have done in your club.
- Improved social features: To encourage even more interaction and engagement within your gym community, we've integrated social features like comments, likes, and push messages directly into the activity feed. Members can now cheer each other on and motivate each other.
We'll gradually phase out the old version of the activity feed by the end of Q3 2023 and provide your members with the new feature. Your members will automatically receive the improved feature via an app update to your Branded Member app.
2023 - Q1
Benefit: From now on, trainers can consider the rest time per set as another workout parameter in addition to weight and training time in the training plan creation.
Value: Depending on the training goal and the selected training method (e.g. strength endurance, muscle building or maximum strength), the rest time per set varies greatly and therefore plays just as an important a role as the load time. The rest time as an additional control parameter offers the trainer the possibility to offer an even more personalised workout.
2022 - Q2
Why?
Push notifications are a popular way to keep your members aware of what's new in your mobile app while increasing interactions between members and your brand.
What?
We have improved the push notification feature to increase your members’ motivation and interactions with your trainers. Your members will receive additional push notifications for the following actions in the future:
- BioAge Update: Members will receive a push notification on their smartphone when their BioAge changes due to a new body measurement or continuous training. By opening the notification, your member will go directly to the respective BioAge component (Strength, Cardio, Flexibility, Metabolism) and can see in which areas a change has occurred.
- Notification of new and updated training plan: Members will receive a push notification as soon as they are assigned a new training plan by your trainers or an existing training plan has been updated. Depending on the change (new training plan or update of an existing training plan), this will be displayed graphically to your member in the app.
- Class Reminder: Members can set a class reminder after booking a class through the app. This will send them a push notification to their smartphone before the start of the class, depending on the time selected.
Why?
The Branded Member App allows your members to bring together all of their workouts, whether tracked inside or outside of your gym. The workout history stores all sessions, whether they are automatically synced through a connected fitness tracker like the Apple Watch, EGYM Smart Strength machines, or manually added. We have improved the workout history so that related exercises to a workout session are aggregated to avoid duplicate entries.
What?
We have improved the workout history section of the Branded Member App in the following two areas:
- Automatic recording of exercises on EGYM Smart Strength machines: Previously, it was possible to manually add exercises performed on EGYM Smart Strength machines in the Branded Member App. In the past, this led to duplicate entries within the workout history, as our EGYM Smart Strength automatically records all completed exercises. To avoid duplicate entries, we have removed the option of manually recording EGYM Smart Strength exercises to avoid duplicate entries.
- Aggregation of related exercises: In the past, completed exercises were listed sequentially in the workout history, making it harder for the member to see what exercises were needed to complete the entire workout session. From now on, the Branded Member App recognizes exercises that belong together and groups them according to the title of the workout session or training plan.
Why?
Fitness classes can vary significantly in format and difficulty level, appealing to different audiences. Therefore, we have developed a new filter option for searching classes, which your members can use to find the right class with the right intensity and match their fitness and experience level. With the help of the new filter option, we aim to ensure that your members have the best possible class experience.
What?
We have developed a new filter option for searching classes, which allows you to filter by the difficulty level of a class. After activating the filter, your member will be shown matching classes that match their fitness and experience level. So that your members can immediately recognise the difficulty level of a class, they are marked with a new icon.
Note: This feature can only be used with an existing management software interface.
Why?
Group classes are one of the most popular activities in a gym. However, the utilization of a fitness class can vary depending on the format and time of day. Using the Branded Member App, you can make your class offerings visible to all members and offer the ability to book classes in advance through your app, which positively impacts your class utilization. We have developed a new booking restriction if your members repeatedly book a class without canceling in advance.
What?
From now on, it is possible to set booking restrictions for members who repeatedly book a class and do not attend it. This new feature should avoid that classes with a limited number of participants are fully booked within the app, but there are still spots available in the class itself due to a member's no-show. If a member repeatedly fails to attend a booked class, they will receive a notice when they try to book the next class and will not be able to book it. The club can define the rules for the booking restriction via the connected management software. 
Note: This feature can only be used in connection with an existing management software interface.
Why?
Until now, available fitness classes were only displayed in the app until the time the class started. As soon as a class started, it disappeared from your app’s list of available classes, making it impossible for your members to still book and join a class that had just started, even though it would still have seats available.
What?
You can now set a duration for how long a class should still be visible and bookable in the app after it has started. To add a booking window extension to your classes, enter the Admin Portal and navigate to Setting > Manage Classes. Under the section Booking Window, you can set a time window for how long a course should still be visible and bookable in the app after it has started.
Why?
Fitness challenges are a popular way to give your members extra motivation and build a sense of community within your club. In the past, gym operators owning multiple facilities could decide whether a challenge was active for only one location or the entire club chain. For example, it was impossible to run a challenge at 20 of 30 locations without manually creating an individual challenge for each location.
What?
Now, when creating a new challenge within the Admin Portal, you can select the exact locations where you want your new challenge to be active.
How it works? To create a new challenge, click on Add challenge. After you choose the goal type of your challenge, scroll down to the section General. Under Challenge Availability, choose the option selected locations. You will then see a list of all locations available. To add individual locations to your challenge, select them by clicking on the “+” icon. The selected locations will be shown in the right column.
Why?
The Branded Member App allows you to offer exclusive deals to your members, which gives them extra value to their gym membership and sets you apart from direct competitors. In the past, however, it was only possible to create deals (e.g., in the form of discount codes) within the admin portal. If a gym wanted to offer deals including a third-party partner, an additional linking had to be used to redeem the offer outside the app.
What?
We have developed the basis so that in the future, third-party offers can be smoothly integrated into your Branded Member App without changing the design of your app or leaving the app to an external platform. This new functionality will allow you to cooperate with external third-party providers and offer exclusive offers directly via your app.
Note: This feature can only be used with an existing management software interface to the respective third-party provider.
2022 - Q1
Why?
In addition to recording workout achievements, the Branded Member App has numerous features that help your members stay motivated and on track. One of these features is the Activity Feed, which works like a social network within your gym. In the Activity Feed, your members can see the achievements of other members, like or comment on them, and motivate each other. This creates a stronger sense of community within your club and helps you further strengthen your brand.
What?
We've made major improvements to the Activity Feed so that your members not only see other members' achievements in real-time and in an enhanced view but also have challenges suggested to them that they can join.
Why?
Depending on the time of day and the class format, there are classes in your club that are regularly fully booked and others in which there are still free places. Members often spontaneously decide to join a class at short notice, as long as there are still free places available.
What?
To allow members to join a class that has already started, you can define a time window in your admin portal for how long the class should be displayed in the app after it has officially started. 
Why?
According to the 2021 LesMills Global Fitness Report, 67% of gym members prefer to work out in groups. Whether it's digitally via live stream from home or in person at your gym, fitness classes will remain one of the top trends in the fitness industry in 2022. That's why it's even more important to offer your members the opportunity to quickly and effectively find the right classes and book them simultaneously.
What?
We've improved the filtering options for class bookings, so members can select the preferences they want, such as location or instructor, with fewer clicks and efficiently find the right class for them. 
Why?
To help members understand how their workouts positively impact their fitness and health, it is critical to make their progress visible. The EGYM BioAge is a comprehensive fitness and health indicator that considers a variety of measurements taken by the user. The EGYM BioAge can be reduced through continuous workouts, helping your members stay motivated over time.
What?
Members will automatically receive a push notification in the app whenever the BioAge has changed. By clicking on the notification, the member will be taken to the respective BioAge component (strength, cardio, flexibility, or metabolism) and receives detailed information about historical trends over the last months or years.
More information about the EGYM BioAge can be found on our blog.
2021 - Q4
Why?
In the past, when your members wanted to log in or re-register in the Branded Member app, they could do so either by entering their email and password or by using the Magic Link feature. With the Magic Link feature, a secure link is sent to your member at the email address they provided. After opening the email and clicking on the security link, your member will automatically be logged into the Branded Member App. However, since for many members the description "Magic Link" seems too incomprehensible, we have changed the description of this function in the app.
What?
We have renamed the option "Log in with Magic Link" to:
Forgot password or hard to type?
The new wording is more understandable for your member and covers two different login scenarios:
- Scenario 1: The member no longer has the welcome email from the gym to sign in to the Branded Member App, and as a result has not yet assigned a password to log in to the app.
- Scenario 2: The member has forgotten their password.
In both cases, the member can click on the alternative option "Forgot password or hard to type?" and will receive a secure link to the email address provided, which will be used to automatically login to the Branded Member App.
2021 - Q3
Why
We recognize that it's difficult for people who don't work with the Admin Portal on a regular basis to understand all the technical details of creating challenges.
What
We've improved the user interface to make it even more self-explanatory, making it even easier for admins to set up challenges. As of now, the new admin interface provides more information about each setting depending on the selected target of a challenge:
- Cleaner, more intuitive user interface.
- A new, more prominent component for localization makes it more convenient to set up multi-language challenges.
- New interface to manage eligible exercises for a challenge.
- The ‘Daily Routine’ option is now a separate setting.
- New image editing function: it’s not needed anymore to resize and download small and large images for challenges. There’s an automated image cropper that resizes the uploaded image automatically and shows right away how the challenge image would look like in the app (on the widget, challenges list, and challenge details screen).
Why
Trust is good, control is better. Often, an error that has crept in during the creation of challenges is only noticed after they have already been published to the users of the Branded Member App. The most common error: not all completed training sessions are counted to the challenge due to a wrong setting in the system.
What
To avoid errors in the creation of challenges, the admin can first create the challenge in "Test Mode" to detect and fix possible incorrect settings in advance.
How to use the Test Mode:
- Go ahead with the Test Mode suggestion while creating a challenge.
- Activate the Test Mode before publishing the challenges.
- Select a few real users, like your own user account, to test it by adding emails tied to their app accounts.
- The created challenge is visible only to these selected users in the app.
- Those selected users can test the challenges, spot the problems and report to admins, so they can change the setup before publishing the challenge to all members.
- As soon as the challenge is validated, the Test Mode should be disabled and the Admin can go ahead with a standard challenge launch process by setting up the start & end date and setting the visibility in the app.
Why
Building a community is extremely important for member engagement and retention in your studio. With the Activity Feed, your members can follow the workout activities of other members in the app and add a like or comment.
What
The new version of the Activity Feed offers the following improvements:
- Receive push notifications when someone in the community likes or comments on an activity in the Activity Feed.
- Manually created workouts with up to 10 exercises are now displayed as one whole “Workout” in the feed with the summarised details.
- More visual and engaging cards for Workouts and Challenge events.
- Members who have set their profile to “Public” can see the activities of other members in their Activity Feed. If they click on another member's profile, they will see their activity for the last 30 days.
- Smart comment suggestions.
Why
Some chains have different management software providers in different locations. Some of them might not have management software at all and some might use different ones. In the past, it was not possible to link the Branded Member App of a gym chain using multiple management software providers. With the update, it is now possible to use different management software providers within a chain for different locations.
What
From now on it’s possible to set up a Branded Member App with multiple management software providers on the location level and without management software at all. To do this, your members must first select their home club location after accessing the app. Then based on the location selection, the respective login process of the member management system will be performed.
Why
Members that accidentally selected a wrong gym location during the login process or have moved to a new gym could not logout and login again using a different brand code.
What
As of now, members can navigate back to the brand code entry step in the login section of the app to enter the correct brand code.
2021 - Q2
Why?
Health insights across critical dimensions, including Flexibility, are meant to ensure that the trainer can create clear and attainable fitness and health goals for members. “Flexibility” is now the fourth dimension of our fitness and health indicator, BioAge, and represents a significant addition to the analysis capabilities within the EGYM Ecosystem. Flexibility as part of the EGYM BioAge is now available for customers using our Branded Member App and the EGYM Fitness Hub.
With the flexibility tests built into the new EGYM Fitness Hub, users can perform self-service flexibility tests. The results of these tests are captured within the BioAge under the component “Flexibility.”
The “Flexibility” value consists of a series of tests that help measure mobility and flexibility which helps determine whether there are any postural imbalances, instabilities, or limitations in the range of motion of a member.
What?
- “Flexibility” is introduced as the fourth category inside the BioAge, for operators that have a Fitness Hub.
- The most recent measurements are interpreted and highlighted as either “excellent,” “healthy,” or “too low” for special attention when imbalances or physical limitations are measured.
- The history of Flexibility measurements is stored and shown as a drill-down into the Flexibility value for a better understanding of workout progress and trends over time.
- For operators that use a Fitness Hub, the overall BioAge calculation is influenced based on the results of the Flexibility tests.
Why?
EGYM now provides more detailed information on the Metabolism value as part of the BioAge in the Branded Member App, resulting in extended integrations with body composition manufacturers like InBody, Seca, Tanita.
After performing the measurements with connected partner equipment, the data is synchronized with the EGYM Cloud and available within the Branded Member App conveniently accessible in one place via the BioAge.
What?
- Show the most critical measurements from partner sources inside of the Metabolism value as part of the BioAge.
- Real-time data from the partner sources influence the calculation of the overall BioAge.
Why?
Fitness chains, especially franchise groups, are regularly interested in running challenges for all of their franchisees’ locations at one time, but sometimes prefer to keep the leaderboards separate per location.
What?
The leaderboard within the challenges feature can now be configured and set to either the location or at the chain level. This means operators can now define whether participants compete only within their specific ‘home location’, or within participants from all locations in one leaderboard.
Why?
Great usability of the Challenges feature keeps members engaged and motivated. So far, the challenges that a member had joined, and all other active challenges available to a member, were shown in separate widgets which were located separately. This made the navigation more complex than it needed to be.
What?
The updated widget for Challenges now contains both: all challenges available in the gym and the ones a member already enrolled in. Members can now easily see which ones they’ve joined via a label displayed on the widget. Also, the progress of that challenge, information about participants, as well as a quick link to the leaderboard, are now accessible straight from the widget for optimal usability.
Why?
Operators that do not have a connected member management software and use Google Calendar to manage class booking have had limited options to configure class booking and optimize class utilization using the Branded Member App.
What?
Now even without a connected member management software, operators can set up a class booking model directly in the Admin Portal:
- Operators using Google Calendar can now set up a custom booking policy for their classes within a specified booking window (defining when booking starts and closes) for all classes within their schedule.
- To avoid members registering for multiple classes that take place at the same time, operators can now limit the number of bookings of classes that take place at the same time per member to optimize class capacity and utilization.
Why?
Members are often at times curious to track and view their workout history. So far, the feature Workout History was missing some frequently requested data points.
What?
Workout timestamp and total activity points earned per day are now added to the workout history.
2021 - Q1
Why?
At the moment, offering live classes is a must-have for all class-focused facilities to retain members. There are multiple sources that are used to facilitate this initiative, including streaming and booking on the operator's side.
What?
Live classes are now supported for all operators whether or not a member management software integration exists:
- Operators can configure a class as “live class”, set up the streaming link, and specify when it'll be shown to members (the options are: always, only after booking, a defined number of hours before the start) and until when canceling a booking is possible.
- Live classes are marked with new self-explanatory iconography.
Why?
The regular Less Mills on Demand (LMOD) offering can be made available via the Branded Member App. LMOD is an extensive online workout library with 1,000+ classes and workouts that are regularly updated. While attractive in terms of content, the extensive library has not always been fully utilised by operators. It works best in conjunction with a member management software integration to make this exclusive offering available for selected membership tiers. However, it is not required to have such an extensive content library for every customer. Lastly, some operators do not have a member management software integration in place.
What?
LES MILLS Content - is a fully native video experience providing video classes directly in the app featuring up to 100 of the most popular LES MILLS classes. LES MILLS Content has a more economical price point due to a smaller but comprehensive library, making it more attractive for customers that do not have a member management software integration in place.
Why?
Operators without connected member management software using Google Calendar to manage class booking have only had limited options to optimize class booking and class utilization for their audience in the Branded Member App.
What?
Now even without a connected member management software, operators can set up a class booking model using Google Calendar:
- Operators using Google Calendar can now set up a custom booking policy for their classes within a specified booking window (defining when booking starts and closes) for all classes within their schedule.
- In the class details, members can see when bookings start and set-up a notification as a reminder to not miss out on securing a spot once the booking opens.
- To avoid members registering for multiple classes that take place at the same time, operators can now limit the number of bookings per member to optimize class capacity and utilization.
- Currently, this custom booking policy for Google Calendar is configured upon request (in the future this will be possible directly in the Club Portal).
Why?
Members want to evaluate their total number of visits over time.
What?
- A new widget called “check-in history” counts the total number of club check-ins over time.
- Members can now configure multiple check-in reports right in the apps.
- Check-in reporting is only available for operators using a member management system that supports this feature.
Why?
Operators would like to customize the tone of voice in the app, particularly the welcome messages shown on the main app screen every time a member opens it.
What?
- Welcome messages can now be configured in the Club Portal on a chain and location level.
- These welcome messages also support hyperlinks and emojis.
Why?
The design of the popular feature Goal Center was outdated and not consistent with the overall new app design.
What?
The user interface on the Goal Center is now harmonized with the rest of the app for an intuitive and consistent user experience in the app.
2020 - Q4
Find more details: here
Why?
Users of connected trackers or Apple Health gained disproportionate amounts of activity points making for non-workout related activities, transmitted as "daily routines". This made comparing these points to points earned with dedicated exercise harder and as a consequence de-motivating for some users.
- If users previously followed the general recommendation of 10,000 steps a day, they achieved the activity level "Diamond" with their daily routine alone.
What?
We adjusted the number of activity points received when reaching the WHO guidelines to equal the activity level “Gold” (The WHO guideline states a minimum of 150 min of moderate cardio training plus two weekly strength workouts).
- In turn, we reduced the number of activity points for users with a daily routine of 10,000 steps to achieve the activity level "Bronze", very close to achieving "Silver" (If these users add two weekly strength workouts they will achieve "Gold").
Why?
Some users received the same activities from Apple Health and from their connected tracker if they connected their tracker to Apple Health and EGYM at the same time.
What?
We added an info screen if users are already connected to apple health and want to connect another tracker to EGYM. This screen explains to the user that it could result in double tracking of activities and that they should just connect their tracker once to either Apple health or to EGYM directly.
Why?
- Members were confused about users in incognito mode showing up in the gym ranking (those are members who keep their profile "private")
- It was not clear for some members that the ranking is calculated on a calendar month basis and that points are reset to 0 at the beginning of every month.
What?
- Only members who set their profile to "public" can access the ranking and are shown in the ranking.
- To make the rules and logic of the monthly ranking more clear we made some UI improvements
- We’ve added a celebration screen at the end of every month.
Why?
- Members did not know if and when conducted measurements were transmitted to the app and when the BioAge was updated
- Members were confused about which values are shown in the bubbles on the BioAge Overview Screen because the value was not indicated next to the bubble
- Members were missing a trend icon on the most detailed strength values
What?
- Always see when the BioAge was last updated
- The unit of the value is now shown directly next to the bubbles/value
- Added a trend icon to the max strength measurements
Why?
Trainers experienced that some members are shown a different value for the BioAge than trainers in the apps.
What?
The reason for different values can be differences in the profile data between Branded Member App and EGYM Trainer App which we need to partially keep separated for privacy reasons.
Two improvements that we implemented
- Sync data when possible, e.g. at the member creation
- Prompt to set date of birth and gender in the Branded Member App and EGYM Trainer App, which are crucial for the correct BioAge calculation, and a difference here will lead to different values displayed
Why?
- Users did not easily find Muscle Imbalances
- To members used to the previous “eGym Fitness App”, the analysis looked differently and showed fewer details: balanced or imbalanced, versus by how much they need to improve to be balanced
What?
- For easier access:
a) We re-named the feature to fitness "Analysis" where users from our testing expected to find the Muscle Imbalances
b) Added a visual tag on the strength category at the overview screen that indicates Muscle Imbalances for the upper body, the lower body, or the core
c) Show Muscle Balances directly after clicking on "Muscle Health" - The Muscle Imbalances now show a greater level of detail with a bar which tells the user exactly how far they are from the recommended “green zone”
Why?
- Members could not see the comments a trainer left per exercise via the EGYM Trainer App.
- Members did not realise if a trainer created or updated a training program for them, because they were not shown at the front of the workouts section.
What?
- Trainer comments are now synced to the Branded Member App and can be accessed by clicking on the image of the training plan.
- New and updated Trainer templates are shown in the front of the workout screen and are labeled with "new" and "from your trainer".
