A rowing machine is one of the most honest machines in the gym. You pull the handle and the screen tells you immediately how hard you are actually working. No descent. No tailwind. No traffic light you happen to wait a very long time at. Just you and a calculator with a flywheel.
That is also the problem. Indoor rowing is efficient and bare. You can finish a perfect session and have nothing to look back on afterwards.
EXR tries to change exactly that part. You connect your rowing machine to a screen, your avatar appears on the virtual water, and every stroke moves you forward. You can train, race, work through challenges and row alongside other rowers. The machine stays the same, and so do the twenty minutes.
The comparison with Zwift is obvious. So obvious that EXR writes on its own website that the app is often called 'the Zwift of rowing'. A recognisable comparison is not yet a conclusion.
What does EXR actually do?
EXR is an app for indoor rowing. You install it on your phone, tablet, computer or Apple TV and connect a compatible rowing machine. The data from your machine drives your boat and avatar through a virtual world. Rowing harder means moving faster. Stopping means drifting, which looks friendlier on screen than collapsing over the handle.
You can simply row, follow a structured workout, join an online event or race other users. EXR offers more than a hundred workouts, alongside challenges, achievements, leaderboards and gear you unlock for your avatar. Training data syncs with Strava, Concept2 Logbook, Apple Health and TrainingPeaks, among others. Monthly updates add routes and training features — the most recent one brought adjustable heart-rate zones and faster pacers to row against.
The difference with an ordinary training app is not only in the data. The screen on your machine records your numbers. A YouTube video next to it distracts you. EXR brings those two layers together: what you do physically changes what happens on screen straight away.
Who is building it?
EXR is built by Salty Lemon Entertainment, an Antwerp game studio founded in 2018 by four game developers. The app went live on 9 September 2021 after a beta phase. World Rowing renewed its partnership with the studio in 2025.
That does not automatically make the app enjoyable to use, but it is a stronger signal than a polished landing page with testimonials you cannot check.
Why the comparison with Zwift holds
Zwift did not get big because cycling indoors suddenly became beautiful. A fan, a towel and sweat on the floor remain a very specific approach to interior design. Zwift changed the context around the training. Numbers became a route, an interval became a climb, and a session on your own became a ride with other people in it.
EXR uses the same basic idea for indoor rowing, and makes three things visible that a classic rowing monitor leaves out.
1. You move through an environment
A pace of 2:03 per 500 metres is useful information. A boat visibly moving faster through Henley-on-Thames is an experience. Both tell you that you are rowing harder, but only one gives your brain something to look at.
2. One session becomes part of progress
Workouts, levels, challenges and achievements turn separate sessions into a longer story. That is gamification. That a grown adult wants a badge for something he was doing anyway is not flattering, but visible progress does make it easier to start again tomorrow.
3. Other rowers are present
You can row alongside others live, join group sessions and race. That does not make a session at home social, but it does make it less closed off. An avatar rowing next to you can be enough to keep going for another hundred metres against someone you will never meet.
So the similarity with Zwift is not in the graphics or the avatar, but in the idea that motivation can also come from your surroundings.
Where the comparison stops
Calling EXR the Zwift of rowing does not make the app as big or as mature as the ecosystem that comparison points to. For many cyclists Zwift has become almost a separate sporting environment. EXR is building towards that position in a smaller category.
And a game makes training more fun, not lighter. Your legs still do not know the environment is virtual. Anyone expecting EXR to turn twenty minutes of rowing into twenty minutes of Netflix finds out around the fourth minute. That is exactly the right limit.
EXR does not have to make rowing easier. The app has to make sure you want to start again tomorrow.
Who EXR works for, and who it doesn't
For rowers the use is clear. When rowing outdoors isn't possible, an indoor session stays connected to routes, training and other rowers. For people training at home the app can be the difference between a machine used weekly and an expensive place to keep towels.
The most interesting group sits just outside the classic rowing world. Fitness racers, CrossFitters and functional fitness athletes row a thousand metres every week without ever calling themselves rowers. To them the machine is a station: finish the thousand metres, get off, on to the next part. EXR turns that station back into a session in its own right, where you can work on pace, duration and consistency more deliberately.
EXR will not teach you rowing technique. The app gives rhythm and instructions, but anyone who has never rowed properly needs a coach more than an avatar. Bad technique does not improve because the water is digital. And you need internet plus a rowing machine that can connect.
For the EXR × Sunday Squad collab, Bluetooth is a hard requirement. A Concept2 with PM5, a WaterRower with a Bluetooth module, a Technogym Skillrow, RP3, FluidRower and most recent models all work. A Concept2 with a PM3 or PM4 monitor does not. Check your machine first, then sign up.
So: do you come back?
'The Zwift of rowing' is mainly a quick explanation for people who don't know the product yet. The more interesting question comes after that: do you come back sooner because a workout is waiting?
If the answer is yes, EXR has already won its most important race. Not against Zwift. Against the wall.
Row a year with EXR × Sunday Squad
We're looking for 25 Belgian sportfluencers who want to use EXR for a year. You don't have to be a club rower. Rowers, fitness racers, CrossFitters and functional fitness athletes all qualify, as long as you already train regularly on a compatible rowing machine.
You get a year of EXR, worth 119.40 euro. In return we ask for one Instagram Story from your first session and one Reel in which you actually use the app and share your honest experience. No product shot. No copy that sounds like it went past Legal first and through a motivational coach after that.
You can sign up until 13 September 2026.