Using Connected Fitness to Cut CapEx and Complexity

Managing numerous disjointed vendor relationships adds complexity to portfolio management, budget planning, and ESG reporting. That's where connected fitness solutions come in handy. Rather than letting you deal with fragmented vendors, these solutions let you consolidate vendors into one connected platform.

The Hidden Cost of Multiple Fitness Vendors

Managing fragmented fitness vendors across your portfolio creates costs that you may not notice because they usually don't appear as one large line item. Instead, they show up as many small charges spread across your properties, each easy to justify in isolation but costly once you sum them all up.

For instance, you may unknowingly have multiple contracts with different vendors for the same equipment and services at different properties. This can add administrative burden, taking time away from more high-value work.

Beyond affecting productivity, managing disconnected vendors can impact standardization. For example, properties may use similar equipment from different vendors, creating inconsistencies in the user experience, maintenance, and replacement planning.

In addition, without vendor consolidation, there's no single source of truth for fitness amenity utilization or portfolio spend. This lack of consistent data makes it tougher to identify underused assets or make informed capital expenditure (CapEx) decisions.

That's why you can't afford to ignore vendor sprawl if you want to simplify procurement and reduce CapEx.

What Connected Fitness Means at the Portfolio Level

Ask three people what connected fitness means, and you'll probably get three different answers. While some people associate it with on-demand fitness classes and smart equipment, others think it's wearables and apps.

That's why it comes as no surprise that some professionals in the fitness industry usually conflate connected fitness with single-facility smart equipment upgrades. Which begs the question: What does connected fitness actually mean?

At the portfolio level, connected fitness involves using a single, cloud-managed platform to manage equipment and content centrally, so that one team can monitor amenity usage, spend, and equipment performance across every connected gym you manage.

Unlike a single-facility smart gym upgrade, which may improve the experience for gym-goers at one property, connected fitness consolidates information across a multifamily portfolio in a single place. This makes it easier to make informed business decisions.

It's no wonder that, rather than managing many isolated gyms, many fitness operators are looking into building a connected fitness ecosystem and moving away from point solutions.

How Consolidation Simplifies Procurement and Lowers CapEx

Reviewing vendor contracts one by one can be tedious, particularly if you manage many fitness vendors. If your portfolio has dozens of vendors, bringing them together in one connected platform can transform your procurement review for fitness technology process, turning it from a recurring exercise you repeat at every property into a single process you set up once and apply across your portfolio.

Beyond simplifying procurement, consolidation promotes standardization across properties, making it easier to provide consistent experiences across properties and plan for equipment maintenance and replacement.

Vendor consolidation for multifamily portfolios also supports CapEx reduction. When every property has the same equipment specifications, you stop paying inconsistent prices for similar items from different vendors.

Consolidation also reduces CapEx by helping you unlock discounts through bulk purchasing and reducing the overhead associated with managing different vendors at each property. This can be especially beneficial when budgeting for multifamily fitness amenities across numerous properties.

That said, you shouldn't settle for just any connected fitness vendor to assist with consolidation. Your connected fitness equipment assessment criteria should pay attention to the following:

• Contract terms: Review the contract length, service terms, exit clauses, and pricing before signing on the dotted line.
• Equipment standardization: Verify that equipment specifications stay consistent across every property in your portfolio.
• Reporting access: Confirm that your team can access data on amenity usage, spending, and equipment performance across all sites from one central location.
• Support model: Evaluate the vendor's support approach, including response times, communication channels, and dedicated support capabilities for each property in your portfolio.

Your aim shouldn't be to consolidate vendors to check a box for administrative reasons. Instead, you should seek to create a predictable procurement standard that your team can replicate at every future property.

Lower Operating Costs Through Remote Management and Predictive Maintenance

Investing in fitness amenities is an excellent way to attract new tenants and charge higher rents. According to the Greystar 2025 Design Survey, nearly eight in ten renters consider onsite fitness centers essential or important when choosing a property, demonstrating their appeal. RentCafe also reports that nearly half of renters will accept a rent increase of up to $100 if a property provides all the benefits they want.

Yet, while fitness amenities can attract new residents and let you command higher rents, there's a caveat. Fitness amenities can affect NOI negatively by increasing CapEx. For example, if workout equipment regularly breaks down across your properties, you may spend a lot on equipment maintenance. You may also have to contact technicians for emergency repairs regularly, potentially increasing operating expenses.

But this doesn't have to be the case in your situation. Implementing centralized management of cloud-connected fitness equipment can reduce operating costs by automating processes in the following ways:

• Predictive maintenance: Traditional, disconnected equipment won't update you when there's a potential equipment issue. With connected equipment, you'll receive alerts when equipment shows signs of potential failure. That means you'll get the opportunity to resolve issues before they lead to costly emergency repairs.
• Remote diagnostics: Requiring technicians to visit properties in person every time there's an equipment problem can be costly, especially across a large multifamily portfolio. Remote diagnostics let technicians diagnose and resolve issues without physically visiting sites, cutting down on paid visits and resolution time.
• Remote software updates: Scheduling onsite technician visits for routine maintenance can increase labor and travel expenses. Remote software updates let you push updates to equipment without technicians physically present, keeping equipment current across your portfolio.

At one property, the benefits of using a connected solution with predictive maintenance and remote diagnostic capabilities may seem negligible. However, across a portfolio with many properties, the benefits can add up fast, resulting in fewer emergencies and less downtime. This can translate into improved operational efficiency while maximizing ROI on your multifamily investments.

Supporting ESG and Asset Review Reporting at Scale

According to Vena's 2025 State of Strategic Finance Report, three in four business executives consider ESG initiatives important or very important to their business strategy.

That means at some point, someone in management may ask for an ESG disclosure that provides insights into energy usage and other sustainability metrics across every property you manage. If this happens, retrieving scattered data can prove challenging.

A connected fitness platform can tackle this issue and make ESG reporting for fitness amenities easier. Since connected platforms capture data in one central place, they eliminate the need to collect and reconcile information manually at several locations.

That same data from connected fitness solutions can support a more informed asset review. When you use a connected fitness platform, you can do the following during a review:

• Showcase which fitness amenities residents use
• Illustrate which properties have the highest amenity usage
• Show how usage changes over time

As a result, you're no longer defending fitness investments on gut instinct or even anecdotes. You're defending them with evidence and a documented portfolio fitness amenity strategy, which can help you make a stronger case for a continuation or increase in amenity spend, particularly when you're planning fitness center upgrades across your portfolio.

Rolling Out Connected Fitness Without Adding to the Capital Project Timeline

Implementing connected fitness solutions across your multifamily portfolio may seem like another burdensome task you need to add to an already long to-do list, especially if you manage many properties. So if you're reluctant to do so, we get it.

After all, the last thing you want is a new amenity solution that delays a renovation or adds unnecessary vendor complexity when you have a lot on your plate.

Fortunately, connected fitness is built to avoid this exact pitfall while delivering CapEx reduction for fitness amenities at every property. Deployment is designed to scale across properties without creating a heavy workload for your teams, so rolling it out across your portfolio won't disrupt ongoing capital projects.

Need help with connected fitness implementation? That's where Fitness On Demand comes in. Whether you manage a few properties or dozens, we'll work with your portfolio and capital teams to plan rollouts that align with your existing schedule and don't bring operations to a grinding halt.

Request a demo today to discover what a connected fitness rollout could look like across your properties.