I immediately asked the technician who set up the Mirror to put the cap on, and I never removed it. The Mirror Care Kit ($20) includes a cleaning spray, a cleaning cloth and a privacy cap to cover the Mirror's front-facing camera. Mirror offers several accessories: A starter kit ($100) includes resistance bands and a Bluetooth heart-rate monitor that you can pair with the Mirror for more-accurate calorie-counting. This is amazing but also disorienting at first, because you're watching the instructors teach a class but watching yourself at the same time - more on that in a minute. It doesn't really look like a screen, though the display seamlessly blends with the Mirror so that it looks like the workout videos appearing on screen are actually in the Mirror itself. You can't see a screen when the Mirror is powered off or in sleep mode, but when you turn the device on (using the switch on the bottom frame) or wake it using the iOS app, a 40-inch, full-HD (1080p) LCD screen comes to life. There's no hiding a Peloton or a Bowflex, but the Mirror is an under-the-radar piece of home decor. (I went with the stand, because I rent an apartment with a lot of rules.) Fortunately, Mirror offers a white-glove delivery service for installing the device, either on a leaning stand or mounted on the wall. The Mirror itself measures 52 x 22 x 1.4 inches and weighs 70 pounds, so moving it is a two-person job. Mirror looks like a bargain by comparison. Classes are, you guessed it, $39 a month. At the top end, Peloton's connected treadmill is $4,295. FightCamp, a boxing workout that uses Bluetooth trackers to count your punches, costs $1,095 for the equipment and $39 a month for classes.

Peloton's bike, for instance, costs $2,245 for the base model, plus an additional $39 a month for the class subscription.

The high price of Mirror is also in line with what you see with other connected gym equipment. A solution like Mirror might be worth the cost if your home is the most comfortable place for getting active. However, I know that, for many people, going to the gym or doing in-person workout classes is daunting. That's a pretty high bar, but that's also a lot of money to spend.

I could have gone with cheaper options, but I feel like these Apple products are essential to my life and work. Devices I've spent more than $1,000 on - in recent years, an iPhone XS and a MacBook Pro - are devices I use every day and can't live without.

The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel