Review: Urevo SpaceWalk 5L Walking Pad

Living in central North Carolina, it’s rarely too cold for me to be outdoors. Throughout the winter, I enjoy regular walks alone, often as a recovery routine from my more rigorous workouts, and stroll with my family for some quality post-dinner time together. However, as an avid football and cycling fan, my idea of a happy Sunday often includes at least a few sedentary hours in front of the television, watching my favorite sports.

Enter the Urevo SpaceWalk 5L walking pad, where, with a setup that includes little more than plugging the machine into my wall, I can spend those mindless hours enjoying a bit of movement, rather than languishing on the couch in front of a plate of hot wings and an ice-cold cream soda (delightful as that sounds).

Similarly, a walking pad could be an ideal solution for your standing desk, to move while you work, rather than spend interminable hours sitting. Whatever the purpose, a walking pad can keep you moving during times you might be otherwise stationary.

Easy to Use

Photograph: Michael Venutolo-Mantovani

The new SpaceWalk 5L from Urevo is a compact, relatively lightweight, and wholly straightforward walking pad, differing from traditional treadmills mainly in its lower top speed.

First, let’s get some specifics out of the way. The SpaceWalk 5L is a little over 4 feet long and a little under 2 feet wide. Its walking surface is 39 inches long and 16 inches wide. It weighs just a bit more than 50 pounds and can hold up to 300 pounds of human.

Unboxing the Urevo SpaceWalk, it’s immediately clear how sturdy and well built it is. Yet it’s relatively lightweight and therefore not terribly heavy or difficult to maneuver. This makes it a versatile unit for any variety of in-home applications. I would say assembly was a breeze, only there was no assembly to speak of, outside of unboxing it and plugging it in. So, yeah. Putting it together was a breeze.

It doesn't have certain features on Urevo's higher-end models—for example, it doesn't have the highest 14 percent incline of our top pick, the Urevo CyberPad ($500). It also doesn't have the walk-run higher speed capabilities of the newest Urevo Foldimix ($438). However, depending on how you want to interact with it, you can still experience a few immersive functions.

Around the World

Photograph: Michael Venutolo-Mantovani

If you simply want to walk on the SpaceWalk, you need little more than power and the unit’s remote control, which adjusts pace and incline. I went from a boxed-up walking pad to a usable piece of equipment in about 90 seconds. The display is easy to read and shows distance, speed, incline, steps, and calories.

On the other hand, if you want to get the full experience Urevo has on offer, you’ll need to download the brand’s app (accessible via a QR code on the unit itself) and pair your phone with your SpaceWalk. There, you can access the brand’s full suite, which includes not only data, easy-to-use controls, and prescribed workouts, but also stores all of your efforts and progress, and easily connects to your phone’s proprietary health apps (close those circles!).

ScreenshotCourtesy of Urevo

It also connected directly to my smart television without as much as a prompt from me, and I was able to control and monitor my progress from my TV, while also enjoying some of the app’s scenic walks.

Of course, not wanting to take my eyes of an exciting off-road bike race, I choose to control the walking pad via the app, which features simple-to-use inputs. For example, to increase or decrease speed, all I needed to do was swipe right or left on my phone. But, wanting to experience everything the SpaceWalk 5L had to offer, I returned to the walking pad a few days later, using my smart TV and the app’s World Tour scenic features to “walk” past Icelandic waterfalls, through the streets of Washington DC, and down a seaside boardwalk in the United Kingdom.

Its 2.5-horsepower motor powers the SpaceWalk 5L up to a maximum speed of 4 miles per hour. However, thanks to a maximum 9 percent of incline, 4 mph can often be more than enough to shorten your breath and get your blood circulating. After an hour at 4 mph and the 9 percent maximum incline, I was sweaty enough to justify another plate of wings while those cycling heroes fought it out on my television screen.

Photograph: Michael Venutolo-Mantovani

The Urevo’s compact size makes it small enough to stash beneath a couch or even a longer loveseat. Considering that it lacks any sort of stabilizing bar, there is no need to break anything down in order to store it. Rather, all it needs is to be unplugged and slid wherever it lives when it’s not in use.

While the $400 price tag may seem steep for a piece of fitness equipment that only allows its user to walk, bear in mind all the hours that might otherwise be spent chilling on the couch or sitting at your desk; hours that could be spent using your body and maybe even earning another cream soda. It's also a lot less expensive, and easier to store, than a traditional treadmill that you might have to keep in the garage.