Peloton has agreed to voluntary recalls for the Tread and Tread+ treadmills in the US and Canada. The company reached the agreements with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) following injuries and a death. It’s no longer selling either treadmill in the US.
The recall of Tread+ devices (Peloton’s first treadmill) follows more than 70 incidents of people, pets and/or objects being pulled under Tread+, according to CPSC. Those include 29 reports of injuries to children, such as second- and third-degree abrasions and broken bones.
The two products are being recalled for different reasons: while there are concerns with the Tread Plus that people may be pulled underneath the treadmill, the regular Tread has issues where the touchscreen at the front may fall off and cause injury. The CPSC says that the recall will impact about 125,000 Tread Plus units and around 1,050 units of the regular Tread (plus an additional 5,400 Tread treadmills in Canada).
The announcement is a serious about-face for the company, which as of late April was still fighting with the CPSC to avoid a full recall despite the fact that a Tread Plus treadmill was involved in the death of a child in March. The CPSC has already issued a warning to Tread Plus owners cautioning that the treadmill poses “serious risks to children for abrasions, fractures, and death.”
Peloton had previously refuted the CPSC’s reports, which it called “inaccurate and misleading,” telling customers in April that “there is no reason to stop using the Tread Plus,” so long as they were following Peloton’s safety measures.
Peloton CEO John Foley apologized for that decision in the announcement of the recall, stating that “Peloton made a mistake in our initial response to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s request that we recall the Tread+. We should have engaged more productively with them from the outset.” Foley also promised to work with the CPSC on new industry standards for treadmill safety.
It’s been a bad day for Peloton. It just emerged that, earlier this year, a researcher discovered a security flaw that compromised user data, though it’s unclear whether any data was stolen. Peloton has fixed the issue, but reportedly didn’t do so until after TechCrunch’s Zack Whittaker asked the company about it months later.
