The honest answer in 30 seconds
If you run a rowing club, a school programme or a university boat club: buy Concept2 RowErgs. The PM5 monitor is the British Rowing testing standard - every BR fitness test is run on a Concept2 (PT Testing Protocols, 2022) - and the machines last 15 to 20 years with basic care. WaterRower is a beautiful home machine if you want something that looks like furniture and sounds like real water. Hydrow is a connected cardio bike with oars - useful for fitness motivation, almost useless for actual rowing technique or club training. The rest of this article shows why, with current UK pricing and sources.
Quick comparison: the three machines side by side
| What you care about | Concept2 RowErg | WaterRower Original Oak | Hydrow Wave |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price (UK, single machine) | GBP 990 (Standard) / GBP 1,150 (Tall) | GBP 1,199 (S4 Bluetooth Monitor) | GBP 1,595 plus GBP 44/month membership |
| Resistance type | Air resistance, adjustable damper | Water flywheel in a sealed tank | Magnetic plus computer-controlled drag |
| Stroke profile vs on-water | Closest of the three | Very good, smooth catch | Software-shaped for class viewing |
| Display and data | PM5: full splits, watts, drag, ErgData, logbook API | S4 Bluetooth: basic splits, no logbook | Subscription content, no open export |
| Federation endorsement | Specified in every British Rowing PT test | Past partnership 2016-19, no current tie | None |
| Frame warranty | 5 years | 5 years on frame / 3 on parts | 5 years on frame / 1 on parts |
| Best for | Any rowing club, school, university or serious rower | Home users prioritising aesthetics | Home cardio with guided classes |
Prices verified May 17, 2026, direct from Concept2 UK (Nottingham), WaterRower UK and Hydrow UK. Standard VAT and delivery included where shown. Recurring costs separated.
Concept2 RowErg: the British Rowing testing standard
Image: Concept2
The Concept2 RowErg is made in Morrisville, Vermont by a 50-year-old company founded in 1976 by brothers Dick and Pete Dreissigacker. The first indoor rower (the Model A) shipped in 1981. The current RowErg is the machine British Rowing rankings, BUCS testing, Henley training squads and every senior club in the country use for selection. When a coach says "do a 2k", they mean a 2k on a Concept2 - it is specified by name in British Rowing's PT Testing Protocols. Sold in the UK by Concept2 Ltd from Nottingham.
Why every coach trusts the PM5 monitor
The PM5 is the brain of the machine. It records every stroke - split, watts, stroke rate, distance, drag factor, heart rate over Bluetooth - and exports the lot via the free ErgData app to your phone or the Concept2 Online Logbook. That is the same logbook that powers the Concept2 World Rankings, so a club rower sees exactly where they sit nationally and globally. Row HQ accepts Concept2 score uploads today via CSV import, and a direct Concept2 Logbook API sync is on our short-term roadmap so scores flow into the coach dashboard automatically - so nobody is chasing paper sheets after a test. See the ergometer glossary entry for a fuller definition.
What drag factor really means for your test conditions
The damper lever changes airflow, but what coaches actually set is drag factor - the resistance the flywheel feels, displayed on the PM5. UK clubs typically test on drag 110 to 130 for senior men and 100 to 120 for senior women, locked per athlete to keep conditions identical from test to test. WaterRower has no drag factor in this sense, and Hydrow chooses for you. If you want to compare ergo scores fairly across a squad - the whole point of testing - you need a Concept2. Use our drag factor calculator to set athletes up correctly.
Why a single RowErg outlasts five committees
Concept2 publishes a 5-year frame warranty, but RowErgs in club gyms regularly clock 15 to 20 years of hard use. Chains, handles, seats and footstraps are user-replaceable for under GBP 50 each, and Concept2 still stocks parts for machines made decades ago. For a club bursar planning a fleet of 10 to 20 ergos, that lifetime cost is the only honest way to compare. A GBP 990 RowErg amortised over 15 years costs GBP 66 a year. Nothing else gets close.
Where the Concept2 fits in your weekly training
The Concept2 sits at the centre of any structured rowing programme. Use the erg pace calculator to convert splits to watts and predicted distances, run 2k predictions from shorter test pieces, and feed everything into the bodyweight-adjusted erg score so your lightweights are not unfairly buried in rankings. Log all of this into Row HQ training sessions via CSV or manual entry, with direct API sync on the roadmap. There is a reason the entire indoor-rowing record book - Josh Dunkley-Smith's 5:35.8 heavyweight 2k, Henrik Stephansen's 5:56.7 lightweight 2k, Brooke Mooney's 6:21.1 women's heavyweight - was set on a Concept2 and not on the alternatives.
It's the best all-round fitness machine in the world, and suitable for anybody, not just international athletes. No matter how hard I tried, I could never beat it. It never broke and it never let me down.
WaterRower Original Oak: beautiful in a living room, marginal in a boat shed
Image: WaterRower UK
The WaterRower is the ash-framed wooden machine you see in lifestyle magazines and luxury hotel gyms. Invented in 1988 by John Duke - a Yale engineer and US National Rowing Team candidate - in Warren, Rhode Island, and distributed in the UK from Wokingham. It pulls an honest paddle wheel through an actual tank of water, the catch feels close to a real boat, and the swooshing sound is genuinely calming. Reviewed in isolation, it is a lovely piece of furniture you can train hard on - at GBP 1,199 for the Original Oak with S4 Bluetooth Monitor.
Why UK clubs almost never buy WaterRowers as their primary fleet
The S4 monitor on the WaterRower is basic. It shows time, distance, split and stroke rate, but the data export story is poor compared with ErgData. There is no equivalent of the Concept2 logbook, no native integration with British Rowing rankings, and the drag is set by how much water you put in the tank - not adjustable per athlete and not directly comparable to a Concept2 drag factor.
For a club, that means you cannot fairly run a 2k test on a WaterRower and compare it to BUCS rankings, university recruiting tables or your historic Concept2 PBs. You also cannot easily benchmark across a squad if half the athletes are on Concept2 and half on WaterRower. The two machines are not interchangeable for serious training measurement, even though they cover similar distances.
When a WaterRower genuinely makes sense
A WaterRower is a great home buy for someone who wants a quiet, beautiful machine, will mostly do steady-state work, and does not need to compare scores to a national ranking. A handful of clubs have bought one or two for variety, but no serious UK club is buying a fleet as their primary erg. WaterRower had a formal British Rowing partnership from 2016 that is no longer prominent on the BR site in 2026 - it never translated into clubs swapping out their Concept2 fleets.
We are proud that WaterRower has become the Official Water Rowing Machine of British Rowing. Great Britain is currently the most successful rowing nation on the planet, and British Rowing are the driving force behind this success.
Hydrow Wave: a Peloton with oars, not a rowing machine
Image: Hydrow
Hydrow is a connected fitness device. It has a magnetic resistance flywheel controlled by software, a 16-inch screen running on-demand and live classes, and a GBP 44 per month Hydrow Membership without which the machine is mostly a paperweight. Founded in 2017 by Bruce Smith - a former US National Team rowing coach and former Executive Director of Community Rowing Inc., Boston - and now over USD 300m in total venture funding. Reviewed as a connected cardio machine, the Wave is well built and the production value of the on-demand classes is high.
Why Hydrow is poor for actual rowing training
The stroke profile on a Hydrow does not match real rowing. The catch is gentle, the drive is software-shaped to feel exciting on camera, and the recovery is artificially smooth. A coach watching a serious rower on a Hydrow will see them learn habits - early back swing, weak catch, rushed recovery - that do not translate to the boat. There is no drag factor, no ErgData export, no Concept2-compatible rankings.
Hydrow markets itself to home users who want guided cardio with a rowing aesthetic. That is a real and legitimate market. It is just not the same product category as a Concept2. For a rowing club to buy Hydrows would be like a cycling team buying Pelotons instead of road bikes - the data is locked, the technique is wrong, and the recurring subscription cost makes a fleet uneconomic.
When a Hydrow genuinely makes sense
If a member of your club wants a guided home cardio machine, has the budget, and does not mind their times will not show up on the Concept2 rankings, fine. But please do not put one in a club gym and expect to run useful tests on it. Even Hydrow's own founder is honest about who the product is for - see his Evening Standard quote below.
Yep, rowing can be really boring. I want Hydrow to be the antidote to those dull, clunky Concept2 machines you find in most gyms.
Three-year cost: side by side
Headline prices hide the recurring story. Concept2 has none. Hydrow has GBP 528 a year of mandatory subscription. Here is what each machine costs to own across three years, before any parts or repairs:
Three-year total cost of ownership (UK)
Hardware plus required subscription, May 2026 prices from each manufacturer's UK site.
Headline: the Hydrow Wave costs 3.2× the Concept2 RowErg over three years - almost entirely because of the mandatory subscription. The two non-subscription machines come within 21% of each other.
Over a 15-year fleet horizon - realistic for a Concept2 in a club gym - the gap widens dramatically. A Concept2 amortises to roughly GBP 66 per machine per year. A Hydrow over the same horizon, with subscription, exceeds GBP 8,000 per machine and still cannot run a BR-compliant test.
What to buy by use case
You run a rowing club at any level
Concept2 RowErg. No exceptions.
Standardise on Concept2 RowErgs. Buy as many as your gym fits. Do not mix machines for testing. Replace handles and chains as they wear, and the fleet will outlive your committee five times over.
You run a school rowing programme
Concept2 RowErg.
Same answer. School squads need to test against BUCS and university recruiting baselines, and that means Concept2. The robustness also matters when 30 teenagers a day are crashing the seat back to the catch.
You are a home rower training for a 2k or rankings
Concept2 RowErg, with WaterRower as a fallback.
If you can stretch to a Concept2, do it. Your scores will compare to club mates and the Concept2 World Rankings. WaterRower is acceptable if Concept2 is genuinely unavailable, but accept that your numbers will not slot cleanly into Concept2-based comparisons.
You want a beautiful home cardio machine
WaterRower.
If aesthetics and a living-room footprint matter and you do not need to compare scores to a club, the WaterRower is a lovely thing to own and train on.
You want guided workouts and motivation, not technique
Hydrow, if the subscription suits you.
Hydrow is a connected cardio device that happens to look like a rower. If that is what you want, fine. Just do not expect to do serious rowing training on it.
FAQs
Are WaterRower scores comparable to Concept2 scores?
No, not directly. The two machines measure work differently, the WaterRower S4 monitor displays distance differently, and there is no shared ranking system. A 7:00 2k on a WaterRower and a 7:00 2k on a Concept2 are not the same achievement. Almost every UK rowing benchmark, from junior trials to BUCS, is set on Concept2 - British Rowing's own PT Testing Protocols specify Concept2 in every test - so comparisons against rankings or club records require a Concept2.
Can I use Hydrow data to track 2k erg progression?
Not in any meaningful way. Hydrow does not export to the Concept2 logbook, the resistance is software-controlled and not equivalent to a Concept2 drag factor, and the stroke profile is shaped for entertainment rather than physiological accuracy. If your goal is tracking 2k erg progression for rowing performance, you need a Concept2 - or you need to test on a Concept2 even if you train day to day on a Hydrow.
What's the price difference between the three machines in 2026?
A Concept2 RowErg is GBP 990 in the UK direct from Concept2 (Standard legs; Tall is GBP 1,150). A WaterRower Original Oak with the S4 Bluetooth Monitor is GBP 1,199. A Hydrow Wave is GBP 1,595 up front plus a GBP 44 per month Hydrow Membership - so GBP 2,123 in year one and GBP 528 every year after that. Over three years that is GBP 990 vs GBP 1,199 vs GBP 3,179. Over a 10-year window, Concept2 is by far the cheapest of the three.
Do rowing clubs ever buy WaterRowers?
Rarely, and almost never as their primary fleet. A small number of clubs have one or two WaterRowers as variety machines or for members who prefer the feel of water resistance, but the gym standard is overwhelmingly Concept2. WaterRower had an official British Rowing partnership from 2016 that did not translate into clubs swapping fleets; we have not seen a single UK club run a WaterRower fleet as their primary testing rig.
Can I export data from each machine to a club management system?
Concept2 exports cleanly via ErgData and the Concept2 Logbook. Row HQ accepts Concept2 scores today via CSV import, and a direct Logbook API sync is on our short-term roadmap so scores land in the coach dashboard automatically. WaterRower has limited app connectivity through their own apps but no equivalent of the Concept2 ranking website. Hydrow keeps data inside its own ecosystem and does not provide an open export. For a club running structured testing, only Concept2 plays nicely with third-party tools.
What is the world record 2k on a Concept2?
Heavyweight men: 5:35.8, set by Josh Dunkley-Smith (Australia) in March 2018 at the Senior Australian Rowing Team Trials. Lightweight men: 5:56.7, set by Henrik Stephansen (Denmark) in January 2013, ratified by Guinness World Records. Heavyweight women: 6:21.1, set by Brooke Mooney (USA) in 2021. All three records were set on Concept2 RowErgs - there is no equivalent ratified record book for WaterRower or Hydrow.
Keep every ergo score in one place
Row HQ keeps each athlete's ergo scores with their training record. Coaches can see progress without chasing spreadsheets. Set up your club free for up to 20 members.
- Jason and the Row HQ team
Sources & references
- British Rowing PT Testing Protocols (November 2022 PDF) — British Rowing
- British Rowing teams up with WaterRower (2016 announcement) — British Rowing
- Concept2 RowErg product page (UK) — Concept2 UK
- Concept2 2025 Year in Review (141,735 new athletes, 79.7B m, 210+ countries) — Concept2 (accessed May 17, 2026)
- New 2k world record 5:35.8 (Josh Dunkley-Smith) — Concept2
- Concept2 Online Logbook — Concept2
- WaterRower Original Oak with S4 Bluetooth Monitor — WaterRower UK
- How much does a Hydrow cost? (UK pricing breakdown) — Hydrow UK (accessed May 17, 2026)
- Hydrow founder Bruce Smith interview — Evening Standard
- Why Sir Steve Redgrave uses the Concept2 rower — Fitness Etc