Walking pad going up in smoke
Not quite literal smoke, but not far off. My cheap-ass walking pad, which I mostly love, now emits an awful burning-motor odor after just a few minutes of light use.
A cheap experiment
I didn’t think it’d break down a mere few months after I bought it, but I’m not shocked. These ultra-low-cost models are known to be disposable.
I had qualms about buying something that was clearly fated to end up in a landfill, but there wasn’t an obvious alternative. Even the high-quality models at 10x the price break down, and the company that makes them (LifeSpan) seemed to be going through a weird time when I was in the market. I wanted a cheap experiment to see if I’d actually use the thing before making a bigger investment. Plus, my coworker owned this particular one and said he’d had great luck with his.
So, I bought the bargain-basement model from Amazon. I also bought the Asurion insurance package for $19 extra. I’ve never bought that for anything else, but in this case, I knew there was a good chance I’d need it.
The insurance claim
TLDR: I’m getting my money back. I didn’t expect that! Here’s how it played out, in case it’s interesting or helpful. Farther down, I’ll talk about the much nicer treadmill I have on order.
I had little hope that Asurion would actually help me out here, but I had to give it a try, at least for curiosity’s sake. When I filed the claim, the automated email response from Asurion said the following:
It looks like your issue may still be covered by the seller or manufacturer; they may be able to assist. Please contact the manufacturer or, if none is listed, the seller and let them know the issue you are having with your product.
Oh great, I thought. I’m sure the company that sells $100 treadmills is going to have a fabulous customer service department. There are a bunch of these unknown companies on Amazon, all selling their own version of the shitty sub-$200 treadmill. I assumed it’d be a nightmare just trying to figure out how to contact them.
But the Asurion email then did something helpful: it showed me exactly how to contact the manufacturer through the Amazon website. With screenshots.
I followed the instructions, and the Amazon UI told me that because Amazon shipped the item, I’d need to contact Amazon’s customer service instead of the manufacturer’s. I followed the link, chose to chat with an agent, and explained the situation. After assuring me they were deeply sympathetic to my plight, the agent asked me to hold while they looked into it.
A few minutes later, they came back and said I could return the item for a full refund or an Amazon gift card. Better yet, one of the return options was to drop it off at any UPS store, so I don’t need to figure out how the hell to box this thing up and ship it myself.
Update: When I got to UPS, they said the return was flagged as “user packed,” so I did need to pack it myself. UPS was happy to sell me a $36 box for the thing. Sigh. But the guy working there said if I bought the box, he’d pack it up for me. I appreciated that.
I can’t tell if buying the insurance package actually helped me here. I’m also curious if Amazon’s customer service spent some of those hold minutes assessing my value as a customer before deciding what to do. I’m embarrassed to admit that I buy a lot of crap from Amazon, so I imagine my value is high.
But in the end, I’ll thank Amazon here. I expected to be shit out of luck.
My next walking pad
I ordered the recently announced Walkolution 2 a few weeks ago, even before I was having any trouble with my current pad.
Before getting into that, I want to shout from the rooftops that my experiment with the crap-ass model has been a massive success. The walking pad is a game changer for me. Working from home used to feel like sandbagging my health. I’d emerge from my basement office at the end of the day to greet the family looking sallow, feeling tired, stiff, beat down. I’d try to get up and go for walks here and there in the day, but I was inconsistent at it. I’d often be too consumed by work to remember to move. And even when I did remember, a 30-minute walk wasn’t enough to offset a full day of stationary desk work, despite my sit-stand desk. People certainly can and do create healthy routines in this scenario. I was just failing to, time and time again.
With the walking pad, I get so much more movement when working from home. This has improved my mood and probably my health. The body high from a walking session reminds me to stretch afterward, and I can now touch my toes for the first time in my life. Amazing.
Most notably, all this movement has made a big difference in two areas of chronic pain. First, I have chronic back pain from an old car accident. That back pain is what provoked me to try the walking pad. The pain gets markedly worse when I’m stationary, whether sitting or standing. It goes away once I start to move. That’s why the walking pad seemed like a good idea, and my physical therapist agreed it’d be worth a shot.
Second, while I wanted to solve my back pain, I also feared that all those extra steps might be bad news for my crap ankle. After all, one orthopedic surgeon told me to think of it like this: I have a certain number of miles left on it, and the more I walk, the faster I use them up.
But I decided: fuck that. I’m not going to live life afraid to walk, for god’s sake. I’m only in my 40s, I’ve got young kids and lot left to do in life. So I was thrilled to discover that the treadmill not only didn’t destroy my ankle but that it actually improved it! My physical therapist chalked this up to motion is lotion, movement is medicine, yada yada. Especially with an arthritic joint. Whatever the reason, I’ll take it.
Back to the new treadmill. Walkolution is said to be the gold standard in these walking pads. Their models are manual — there’s no electric motor to maintain, make noise, or burn out. They come at a cost, though. When I was first in the market, their treadmills ran about $5,000. That was laughable for me at the time. My shitty one was $130, and I had no idea if I’d end up actually using it.
But since then, two things changed. First, I learned that I do in fact use the hell out of these things, and I want to continue doing so for as long as I’m able. Second, Walkolution announced the Walkolution 2 at less than half the price of their first model. They also had a pre-order special of 20% off, which is a hefty savings at these prices.
Eventually, after perseveration, I took the plunge. I’m eagerly waiting for it to ship, and I’ll report back once I’ve put some time into it.