Speediance's Lost Feature: What V3 Took Away (And Why It Matters)

The Feature That Disappeared

Speediance pushed V3 software to my upstairs Gym Monster 2S, and one of the first things I noticed was that a specific partner mode inside Free Lift was gone. Not reduced. Not changed. Gone.

Here's the thing — this wasn't some obscure setting buried in a menu. This was literally in all of Speediance's original demo videos. You know, the ones they used to launch the product. The feature where two people could lift at the same time, with different weights, on the same machine.

A Speediance community rep acknowledged it was a mistake to remove it. But as of January 2026, it still hasn't come back.

What We Had in V2

I still have the original Speediance downstairs running V2 software. That's what I'm using to demo this with my daughter Lily.

In V2 Free Lift, you click partner on the screen and it gives you two separate resistance values. Both sides can be set to different weights. Both people can lift at the same time.

That's something Tonal literally cannot do. Tonal has one motor. It adjusts for the total weight on the bar, but both people are pulling the same resistance. Speediance has two independent motors inside the frame. When it works correctly, each side can have its own weight, its own rep count, its own power graph.

Watch Lily and me do lat pulldowns side by side. She's pulling 8 pounds. I'm pulling 44 pounds. We're both getting credit for our own reps, on our own resistance, at the same time. The screen shows green (that's me) and yellow (that's Lily) as separate lines on the power graph.

That's the feature that was in every early Speediance demo. That's the feature V3 removed.

Why It Was Already Broken (Even When It Worked)

Now let me be honest about something: even in V2, this mode was half-baked.

It doesn't track against a logged-in user. Whatever you do in partner Free Lift mode just shows up as a blob of volume with no name attached. There's no way to say that was Lily's workout and have it count toward her profile.

You also can't use barbell mode in partner Free Lift. The button disables itself. Why? Because you can't apply independent weights to a barbell — one side would be heavier than the other and the bar would tip. Instead of handling that gracefully, Speediance just turns off the button.

And the Bluetooth handles? They don't work properly in this mode either. When I turned them on, they turned on for both sides simultaneously instead of just mine.

So what you're left with is this: two people lifting at the same time, with different weights, but none of it is tracked and you can't use the barbell. It's cool as a novelty. It's not practical for actual training.

What V3 Did Worse

In V3, they redesigned the Free Lift screen to look exactly like the workout screen. That works great for workouts. It works terribly for this mode. All those easy-to-hit buttons from V2? Gone. The whole interface became clunky.

And they removed the partner toggle entirely from Free Lift. Not just broke it — removed it. You can still do partner workouts through the regular workout menu (Workout Plus or Family mode), but that requires both people to have accounts, both people to log in, and it works completely differently — more like a scheduled class than two people lifting freely.

So what you had in V2 was a gimmick. What you have in V3 is nothing.

What Tonal Does Better (For Now)

Here's the uncomfortable truth: Tonal's family mode actually works for what most people want. Two profiles, both logged in, both tracked separately, scheduled workouts you do together.

It's boring. It's structured. It doesn't let you do the cool dual-motor side-by-side thing. But it tracks your data. And if you're paying for a machine to get tracked data, that's kind of important.

Speediance's response has been that a better partner mode is coming. They've acknowledged the mistake. But I've been waiting since V3 launched and it still isn't here.

Why I Still Prefer Speediance

Let me be clear: this one missing feature doesn't change my overall assessment. The hardware is better. The software is more flexible. The company responds to users in ways Tonal never has.

But if you have a partner who wants to get strong on the same machine — especially a spouse or a kid who wants to work out with you — the current state of partner mode on Speediance is a gap. The V2 version was a cool demo that didn't hold up to real use. The V3 version doesn't exist.

I demo this with Lily because I want you to see what was there, what it looked like, and why the community is frustrated. Two independent motors is a genuine hardware advantage that Tonal can't match. The software just hasn't caught up yet.

The Bottom Line

If you're buying a Speediance expecting to do partner workouts where both people get their own tracked data — wait. The feature isn't there yet. It might be coming. But it isn't here now.

If you just want a machine where you and a partner can lift at the same time on different weights as a novelty, V2 could do it. V3 can't. And there's no timeline on when it returns.

This is the one area where Tonal's more mature software actually wins. For everything else — progressive overload, noise level, build quality, company responsiveness — Speediance is ahead. Just not here.