Beyond Power VOLTRA I – Full LONG Term Use Review – 2024

Last updated on November 15th, 2024 at 07:51 am

The Beyond Power VOLTRA I is a rack attached cable system, up to 200lbs of resistance, with unique features like adjusting the eccentric and concentric portions all crammed into a box the size of one of my shoes. I was lucky enough to be sent a PRE-release model back in July of 2023. In January of 2024 I received the production model, the same thing you’d buy today. We’ve been using and abusing, testing and taking notes for the past year to collect our ideas around this potentially revolutionary piece of home gym equipment.

The Beyond Power VOLTRA I is pretty rad on paper. The price is tough though. And there are some things to consider when buying a smart device for the home gym that you might not have considered. So let’s dig into the Beyond Power VOLTRA I so you can decide if this is the right purchase for your home gym, or not.

Links throughout may include Affiliate Links. These help fund the site at no expense to you.

Transparency Note

Beyond Power reached out to me to see if i was interested in their product and wanted to help them showcase it in early 2023. I shared it in my newsletter where people showed some excitement. I provided some additional notes on a few areas, scheduled an AMA with them on r/HomeGym, which they basically used as their launch to the world event.

They offered to send me a pre-release version of their VOLTRA I. While I schedule AMAs with no strings attached, and helped share info for them because I was interested myself, I was obviously excited to get something so cool into my gym.

In January of 2024 they sent me the official release version of the VOLTRA I, and since then they have also provided an affiliate link, which means if you buy it, I get some money in my pocket at no additional cost to you.

I’m not obligated to do anything but tell the truth and provide feedback. But I always want to be clear when and how I receive products for free. Especially when this is a $2,000+ unit, and they gave me two of them!

Beyond Power VOLTRA I Video Review

Beyond Power VOLTRA I Overview

The Beyond Power VOLTRA I comes in a magnesium alloy case, with all the internal workings inside of it. This means the motor, the batteries, and the various fancy smancy computer stuff is all inside here. It is a rack attached unit, meant to work with basically any rack configuration you might have. Very similar to a cable unit, but the power is obviously not in weights but in the box itself.

On the outside we’ve got the mounting plate on the back, which hooks into any of the mounts Beyond Power offers, and locks in tight. The VOLTRA I was designed to be an add-on to an established home gym with a rack, bars, plates, you name it as the mounts are all meant to attach to a rack in some fashion. This is fundamentally different than the other workout tech based sytems we’ve seen that are more geared towards being the entire home gym.

You’ve got the LCD screen, where we can power it on, choose our mode, adjust the resistance and a number of other features, and get to work. The unit tracks your reps and sets as well and has metrics built into the iOS app (unfortunately right now it is only available for iOS, so I can not review this portion).

The most stand out features of the VOLTRA I are the 5lb to 200lb resistance profile, which is a 1 to 1 weight ratio unlike most cable machines that have a certain stack but are cut in half with a 2 to 1 ratio.

The built in battery which powers everything.

The VOLTRA has no subscription model built in, and it uses non-proprietary cable attachments

The mounts are adjustable to a number of rack options, whether you have 2×2, 2×3, 3×3, 5/8 or 1” hardware… with some really heavy duty and awesome build quality components

And the system itself has a number of built in modes, functions, and cool tweaks you can play with, and because it is smart tech with a Wifi connection, they can pump out Firmware Updates to make it even cooler as time goes on.

Beyond Power VOLTRA I Specs

• Brand: Beyond Power
• Made In USA: No
• Dimensions: 12″ L x 4″ W x 4″ D
• Weight: ~10lbs
• Max Resistance: 200lbs of Resistance
• Cable: Synthetic Cable “Stronger Than Steel”
• Finish: Flat Off-White
• Assembly: None
• Mobile App: iOS available only
• Battery: Type C Charging
• Warranty: 1 Year w/ optional extended warranties

Beyond Power VOLTRA I Components

Battery

The battery is a huge piece to the puzzle. Think about your phone, if you forget to charge it overnight, the next day your entire schedule is thrown off. The last thing you want to do is walk into your gym, get ready for a session, pre-workout downed, warm-up complete, and then realize you don’t have any battery life in your gym equipment.

The good news is, I’ve done a lot of testing here, and talking to others like my buddy Brandon Campbell, and I think MOST people are likely to get about a week worth of charge out of this. Now that is a VERY generalized number… so let me break it down.

Each rep is going to eat some battery life, but the key is that the more resistance you use, the more battery each rep and set uses. So if me and my daughter Audrey do the same set of 15 reps on pulldowns, her set at 15lbs and my set at 115lbs are not going to use the same amount of power.

I recently did an ENTIRE upper body workout, consisting of 3 working sets for lat pulldowns, seated rows, curls, triceps extensions, and lateral raises. So 15 sets, with the back work obviously being much heavier than the other stuff.  This used roughly 20% of the battery. So even if you did this much cable work, 5 days a week, you’d still likely only need to charge the Voltra I over the weekend.

Talking to the team at Beyond Power, the system also has built in fans, which help it from overheating. The workout I just mentioned was done on a triple digit day in my garage and it never overheated. BUT the fans definitely eat some more battery life. So, plan accordingly for the warmer months.

If you are a personal trainer training people all day, every day, these numbers might look a little different, or if you plan to use this for a lot of heavy squats, deadlifts, and other variations like that… but the majority of people should not expect any kind of interruptions in their workout plans.

The VOLTRA I can operate while plugged in, so if for some reason you managed to forget to charge it, you could run an extension cord and make it work. I found that I was able to get a full charge in about 2 hours, so in a pinch you could start charging during your warm-up and probably get a workout out of it, charge during a lunch break, or what most people will do, simply charge overnight and be good to go.

So a trainer with a full weekly schedule would likely be good charging every night, and a normal home gym owner would be good charging on some schedule like every Friday.

After months of use on these two units, I haven’t noticed any degradation in the battery life or abilities. They have an internal monitor for the health of the battery and mine is currently sitting at 100%.

Beyond Power does offer a replacement battery, if you happened to need one by the way, but they are EXPENSIVE.

The only negative I found with the battery, was that if you manage to run it to 5% and below, it won’t turn on at all. Since it won’t turn on, you can’t disconnect it from the mount. So you either have to take the unit off your rack with the mount, or run an extension cord to charge it.

Cable

The cable itself isn’t so much a cable we are accustomed to in a cable machine, because it has to wind up inside the unit. So it is more of a rope type feeling. This doesn’t seem to impact the use at all, the overall feeling, smoothness, it all works. They again offer a replacement for the cable and the good news is that it is fairly cheap.

As I mentioned for the battery, they have an internal monitor for the cable health, and mine is sitting at 96%. If we equate that to roughly 1% per month, we are looking at 100 months before you’d kill the cable as an estimate, of course depending on heavy use.

One thing I really like here, is the ability to adjust the starting position of the cable. This is great for those of you who have kids or smaller athletes that lift with you. I’m able to adjust and get this to the exact right height for Audrey, without having to constantly tinker with the rack adjustments. And if we wanted to share and superset, we’d just adjust the start position back and forth.

I’ve done cable crossovers, rear delt stuff, pulldowns, low rows, curls… the cable pulls really well with no real noticeable drag.

The only issue I have with the cable, is that on more than one occasion, I’ve had people walk into the garage and when the VOLTRA is off, pull the cable down. They obviously thought it was like a traditional cable machine, or maybe it would kick in right away, but the cable was half way down my rack and I had to turn it on, readjust, then turn it back off.

Not sure if there is a way for it to simply lock, or maybe there is a “storage mode” for the carabiner in a future version… It was fun telling them that they broke my $2k piece of gym equipment… but ultimately I’d like to see some sort of solution there. That’s my only gripe with the cable.

Beyond Power VOLTRA I Performance

What does it feel like? That is a question I’ve received a number of times. The answer… different… Not better or worse necessarily, just different. Because the unit isn’t weight, meaning it isn’t gravity but instead a motor applying the resistance, it feels a little different. Beyond Power will claim it is more consistent. For the majority of movements, stuff like curls, triceps extensions, rows, pulldowns, it all feels pretty normal.

Where I feel this being different than a cable is on items like lateral raises, as well as light weight warm-ups.

I believe this is likely due to the motor trying to apply a consistent force against what you are doing. In the warm-up scenario, it’s like an adult trying to throw a wiffle ball fast, it is just too light. So the motor has trouble trying to apply enough force for resistance on the lower weights.

For the lateral raises, I think it is a combo of lighter weights and the extreme strength curve of the exercise. You start off REALLY strong and then get REALLY weak at the top. So to make it through the exercise you have to drop the weight a bit, and we get that wiffle ball effect at the beginning, with a normal and then almost parking break effect at the end.

Again, every other exercise at a working weight is fine. I’ve done leg stuff, back stuff, arms, shoulders, crossovers, forearms, whatever. They all truly feel very natural and smooth, very similar to a cable machine. If you weren’t LOOKING for a different feeling, I don’t think you’d find it.

How Accurate Is The Voltra I?

I wanted to test how accurate the resistance was, meaning if the screen said 20lbs, was it actually 20lbs. I went ahead and ran two different tests.

First, I loaded up a few different resistances and used my crane scale. 20lbs, 50lbs, and 100lbs. I was looking to see if my crane scale measured roughly the same thing. Below is the 100lb test, which is pretty damn accurate. Add in some instability on my end and we are probably perfect.

The second test was with a loading pin. Seeing if an equivalent amount of weight on a pin to the resistance on the screen, would move the cable. I loaded 20lbs almost exactly, and then 50lbs almost exactly. The interesting part was that the Beyond Power VOLTRA I didn’t drop the weight until several pounds UNDER the stated resistance.

If I combine the two results here, I’m going to go with this… . I would argue that since there is some variability in my static pull, a couple pounds is probably ok here, so the first test was a pass. The second test I’m assuming is because of the way the motor works. 50lbs would fight back against 50lbs evenly.

You need a certain percentage of force compared to the resistance applied to the cable, to move the cable. Both come in around 15%, so that means that while this might not have been what I originally thought would happen, it is a consistent result.

1lb Increments

I mentioned that this goes from 5lbs to 200lbs with 1lb increments. The 1lb increments are absolutely awesome for little exercises, and especially working with my daughter. Where 10lbs is kind of light, 15lbs might be heavy, so we can dial it in to 12 or 13 without having to grab a bunch of small plates, pins, and various hacks to make it work.

The downside with the 1lb increments, is the need to scroll through them all. First, if you are trying to go from say 12lbs to 14lbs, it can be a little finnicky to nail the scrolling and selection and land exactly on the weight you want. I often would aim for something like 45lbs, land on 46, and just say “close enough”.

Second… If I change weight on a stack, it takes literally 2 seconds to go from the smallest weight to the middle of the stack, and then to the biggest weight, and all the way back down. On the VOLTRA I you have to scroll from 5 all the way to 200. They have this incremental jump option here, but in the instance that I might be working in with my daughter, where she is using 15lbs and I’m using 115lbs, or if I wanted to superset back with biceps, this is kind of a bummer.

The adjustments are quick and easy, but not in a back and forth, back and forth, back and forth kind of manner. In my mind, there might be a simple solution here. They recently added a +5 and -5 increment option on the screen. I feel like you could simply add a few more here… +1, +5, +10, +25, +50 maybe? This wouldn’t take up too much space on the screen and would give you some pin-point and quick adjustments. I believe in the app you can simply type in the number you want, so you could hop between 5 and 200 with a quick adjustment.

Multiple Modes

The VOLTRA I comes with a ton of extra features, something a basic cable system obviously doesn’t do. So lets look at some of the features and tech inside this guy.

Buried in the settings is the ability to customize the language of the VOLTRA, convert from metric to imperial, change how the screen rotates if you set up the VOLTRA in a different orientation… you can set up a Child Protection mode, new features that just got released like Direct Load…

You can adjust the maximum resistance setting, which might be helpful in a rehab facility… you have multiple Modes that you can circulate through including Beginner, Normal, and Sport that each adjust the velocity at which the cable can travel and the max resistance. And you can adjust the maximum additional eccentric load you can add, taking it all the way up to 100%. More on this in a second.

Depending on when you are reading this, these features could be outdated or been added to, just the nature of technology.

Main Modes

From the main screen, you have Weight Training, Resistance Band, and Damper Modes.

I tinkered with the Resistance Band and Damper Modes briefly, but didn’t find them helpful in my own training. If I’m going to use bands, I’m just going to use bands. And I don’t do any explosive resisted sprints, or athletic development type stuff in my garage, so these just didn’t get used at all. I totally see a world where these make sense, just not my thing.

In the weight training mode you have the ability to adjust a number of important aspects from the on screen display.

The eccentric and chains functionality lets you add weight ON TOP of your current selected resistance, by either overloading the eccentric portion of the lift, or by feeling as though you have added chains to the lift.

The eccentric would be the lowering phase, so if you wanted to lift 50lbs, but control the lowering of 100lbs, you’d do that here. The benefit, in theory, is that eccentric overload has a lot of potential for hypertrophy and strength development as well as rehab functions. This is a core concept behind Flywheel training like my kBox.

The chains work in an accommodating resistance manner, where the weight gets heavier as you get further from the unit, and lighter as you return closer.  I love me some loading of chains on a barbell, so this is a unique feature for sure.

They also offer the ability to change the quick adjustment button from 1 to 5 to 10, which as I mentioned I think should just all be on the screen all the time.

And then they have these interesting pieces… Standard and Intense Resistance Experience. I played with these for awhile back and forth. The INTENSE resistance profile simply fights you harder. So if you want to use say, 30lbs and rip it, the Standard mode would let you do that, but the INTENSE mode will fight back. In a normal exercise function, you probably won’t notice MUCH of a difference.

In testing it added about 10% of perceived resistance during the pull, but nothing at the isometric static hold. So it isn’t adding “weight” simply slowing down the cable.

The assist mode kicks in if you happen to stall on a lift, much like a spotter would. If you pause in a rep for more than a second, it’ll ASSIST you with the lift to finish the rep.

Most of these settings, modes, and features, in my experience and opinion, aren’t something most of us need or will likely use that often. Again, not complaining that they are there, they aren’t in the way or difficult to turn on and use if you wanted to, just that the majority of us simply want to lift more today than we did last week.

We aren’t likely to change the max resistance, most of us have bands, we rarely have enough space to do sprints in our garage, and unfortunately the eccentric and chains function is missing something.

Custom Strength Curves

They are missing the ability to customize the strength curve, something like a Prime Fitness adjustable cam, where you could overload certain portions of the lift. Lets take the back, we are strongest in the stretch position, and weakest in the contracted position. Chains unfortunately exacerbate that problem, same with lateral raises, and a number of other exercises. What we want is the exact opposite of chains, heavy in the beginning, lighter as we pull further away. So an area of opportunity for the VOLTRA.

Subscriptions

I mentioned in the beginning, that the VOLTRA has no subscription model, and doesn’t have proprietary cable attachments. This continues to build on the idea that this was meant for someone who already has a gym. This is an addition to a rack, opposed to an all-in-one home gym.

In multiple discussions and from multiple sources, Beyond Power has no plans to have a subscription model baked into the unit. Obviously, things can change, but the rumors I’ve heard are simply that this would be an additional feature, opposed to a required feature.

In the time we’ve used these, I’ve never had a crash, blue screen, or anything reset or die on me. The pre-release model had a few hiccups when left idle for a while, that the release model doesn’t have. This has performed in 30 degree temps and 100+ degree temps, for an hour or so at a time, light weights, heavy weights, all of the above… no problems.

And the best part is… since this connects to WiFi, if there was some weird tech issue, they could in theory run a firmware update to fix it. The things I mentioned already about the cams? Probably something they are working on. Which is a REALLY cool feature. They’ve already released a couple updates, adding requests from the community. We could see new features, improvement in battery life, more resistance, you name it. Since everything is tech based, they simply have to find better ways to program it, to get more out of it, and share it with the world.

Mobility & The Travel Platform

I’ve seen a number of people comment or think that the Voltra I would be a good travel companion or small gym set-up in a front room, etc… it makes sense in theory… you can use multiple mount options, it has a carrying case, has an optional travel platform, and comes in a very portable size and shape. But in practice it is a little different than what you might think up front.

You can do things like curls and rows and shoulder work with the travel platform… My wife and daughter recently got to do the majority of a workout on it, inside, because it was 110 degrees here in July in California… my wife’s comment was “we need to keep this”. So, a nice win there.

Unfortunately, I was REALLY hoping that the travel platform would open up things like belt squats, but the range of motion is nowhere near enough. You have the mount, plus the VOLTRA itself, plus the couple inches of slack in the cable, and the carabiner, and there is basically no way to hit a solid depth with this on squats, and even things like RDLs have the same limitation in the stretch portion.

I think they need instead of a flat platform, something more like the Exxentric platform for the KBox, where the Voltra would hook in under it, and you’d get back nearly half a foot of range of motion.

And remember, if you want to do pulldowns or something with it on the go away from your home gym rack, you are going to need some kind of custom set-up to make that work. They don’t currently have a strap or set-up for say a tree or post or anything. When looking at the VOLTRA for portability reasons, keep these things in mind. I think the platform works well for SOME things, but misses the mark on others, which could really limit your travel workout.

Key Considerations For Your Own Gym

Before adding the VOLTRA to your space, there are some other items you likely need to think about.

I mentioned this concept during my Isolator review… your rack is going to play a part in the VOLTRA’s success. Not so much the 2×3 vs 3×3 aspect here, but how crowded your rack is. If you have safeties, j-cups, monos, maybe other items on the front of your rack, you’ll likely need to get those out of the way to move the VOLTRA up and down the rack or get it into the position you want.

You also need to look at how your rack is configured. Because my rack is welded and I have lower crossmembers, the VOLTRA can’t go all the way to the floor, as it runs into them. Because my rack is on a platform, I also have to have a specific bench to get it into the right position.

The VOLTRA comes with… only the VOLTRA and a single carabiner. So you need a bench of some kind to sit on for multiple exercises… you need cable attachments and likely somewhere to store them.

For pulldowns you have nothing to anchor yourself down… For low rows, you need something to press your feet into for the heavy work.

You could use some weight pegs or leg rollers, some blocks, or maybe you have a hack with a leg developer or something… or you could consider something like the Darko VooDoo Low Pulley. This would allow you to keep the VOLTRA towards the top of your rack, but give you a lat pulldown pad to keep you in place, as well as the footplates for the low row.

You really need a clean rack and open layout to take full advantage of the VOLTRA I, plus you are going to need an assortment of other goodies to take full advantage… with a $2000 price tag and the need to spend hundreds of bucks on top of that, this thing goes from expensive to EXTREMELY expensive, very quickly. 

Beyond Power Voltra I FAQs

Over the past year I’ve seen a lot of great individual questions and concerns for the VOLTRA that I want to address… 

Overall Thoughts On The Beyond Power VOLTRA I

One thing I really like about doing long term reviews like this, is I get to have a pseudo social experiment with it. I get outside of the shiny object honey moon period, and see if this stuff still holds my attention week to week, day to day.

Early on I did basically all my cable work off the VOLTRAs for a couple months, then allowed myself to just simply pick and choose between the VOLTRA and the Inspire FT2 where I saw fit. Even though the VOLTRA is awesome, I really gravitated towards the FT2 more often, I think because it is just so easy and quick, the stacks, the bench right there all the time, and no real set-up or adjustments needed. Now that is side by side… with a very specific set-up of a dedicated cable corner vs a rack attached piece.

If you ONLY had the VOLTRA, you’d have nothing to compare to, and you wouldn’t be in the same situation I’m in. But personally, If I’m doing an entire workout of cable work, the FT2 is simply faster and easier to use.

But wait, there’s more…

Now one thing the FT2 can’t do, is go places where the VOLTRA can. I mentioned it isn’t a super successful travel unit, which is correct, but because you can hook it up to any crossmember in a number of orientations, you have near limitless potential inside of the gym.

You can do assisted pull-ups… hook it up to some jammer arms… get REALLY crazy like I did with the Radian Sliding Bar… When I posted on Reddit about this, one dude had a great idea… you could rig up a 3×3 mount to any plate loaded machine and now you have a cable driven machine. Leg extensions, leg curls, whatever it might be. You can get really creative in a number of ways that take up no space, have a huge resistance profile, and can be a lot of fun. So, for those hackers, DIYers, and people looking to get real creative in their space, this holds unlimited potential.

Other Options On The Market

The MAIAK-GO is a new contender on the market in the exact same ball park. Rack attached, smart device, with 200+lbs of resistance. It will be on Kickstarter for a much lower price, but then jump up considerably. Check out their AMA for more details.

You could grab something like the ANCORE, or simply go with any cable machine on the market.

You also have devices like the SHOGUN FLEX that operate in a similar realm.

Keep in mind, the MAIAK-GO has yet to be released, and we have no idea if it will even see the light of day. The ANCORE and the Shogun are MUCH lighter in terms of their resistance. And you’ll obviously not get the same space savings features, SMART tech, updates, upgrades, and more from any standard functional trainer like the Inspire FT2.

Right now, the VOLTRA I is truly by itself in terms of the complete package it offers. But there are other options if you don’t need all of those features.

Wrap Up

The VOLTRA I performs well, it has held up well, and overall our experience has been good. There are some areas of opportunity, some things to refine, but in a device that can be updated with a firmware update for free, that kind of removes a lot of the initial hesitation aspects of buying a Gen 1 piece of gym equipment. Beyond Power has absolutely CRUSHED a Gen 1 release…

But before we wrap up, I want to discuss one aspect a little further… Here is one of my 45lb plates.

These plates were made in the 80s, spent a good 30 years in a commercial gym, and have been in my gym for nearly a decade. They function and perform the same in 2024, as they did when they were cast in the 80s. And they’ll continue to do so for decades in my gym, likely outliving me, maybe getting passed down to my daughter, or her kids… for as long as humans continue to lift weights.

The VOLTRA I has held up fantastically in my garage for the past year. The battery life is still great, the overall unit is intact, all parts, pieces, everything is good to go. But at some point that won’t be the case. The battery will fade, the internal gadgets will die, or they’ll simply move onto a VOLTRA II. At some point in the future, this will become a 10lb brick… And my plates, well, they will still work.

When we think of gym equipment, we often have this idea in our head that we are buying something that will last forever. And historically that has been the case. Even with cable machines, some minor maintenance, replacing a cable here and there, and it’ll last forever. But with SMART devices, with exercise tech, we have an end of life scenario at some point.

We don’t know yet what the lifespan is, and considering the battery and cable health of my units being so good, we could be looking at a PRETTY long life span… but I want you to think about the VOLTRA I more like a new computer instead of a new piece of gym equipment.

You can run updates, get cool new features, and this thing will continue to expand and improve and be more and more awesome… Until it isn’t. At some point your $2k investment for one of these, is going to end up in the landfill, and you’ll be on to the next thing. If you had spent that same money on a more traditional cable system, you’d still be using it for years to come.

I am 100% not telling you to skip the VOLTRA I. I’m keeping mine, and the ability for the updates to keep rolling is something that the rest of my gym equipment will never do. At some point they’ll have the Android app I assume, and I’ll be able to do the cool drop set features and other nifty things, and the ease of use, the 1lb increments, the indoor use, and the overall function of the VOLTRA I is just solid.

You just ultimately have to decide… Are the space saving features, the smart tech, the updates, and everything the VOLTRA I manages to cram into this tiny box, worth the $2000 investment, knowing it has an end date? Or are you gonna go the more traditional route and grab a big, old school piece of iron and steel? The choice is yours!

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