Walking pads can be noisy. Still many brands and reviews claim that a certain model is very quiet.

While this may be correct at the beginning (at least to a certain degree) most walking pads become increasingly loud over time. And that's usually not reflected in the reviews.

I know this from personal experience as I burned through 3 walking pads in 3 years. So on this page you can find my recommendations.

The quietest walking pads don’t have a motor

The problem of a cheap $300 walking pad: The motor of is weak. Even if the specs say it has e.g. 1.5 HP that's rarely true in reality. With every strike of your feet, it howls due to the added load it has to pull. And due to the bad quality the motor wears out quickly.

So why not remove the motor from the equation?

There aren't many but you can find manual curved treadmills that are made for under-desk usage. Since they don't have a motor those treadmills are really quiet.

Listen to this comparison of a manual treadmill followed by a 9 month old electric walking pad.

The market leaders are the Walkolution 1 and 2. Both come at a high price of $3,971 and $2,374 before taxes and several disadvantages for many home offices though.

With the Office Walker we're building the first manual walking pad that deserves its name. Small footprint, affordable, and quiet.

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Here are some more advantages of manual walking pads:

• They don’t consume electricity making them cheaper over the long run.

• They don’t break easily preventing you from discussions with customer service and the annoyance of packaging these big devices again to return them.

• You can stop walking when you need to focus. No need to decrease velocity via a remote control.

• You can run on manual walking pads. The speed isn’t limited.

(Somewhat) quiet electric walking pads

If you’re more convinced of an electric walking pad here are a few options often recommended in online communities like Reddit.

• Unsit: One of the few walking pads that is high quality and has a strong motor. It's 43dB loud making it suitable for the office. But the good quality is reflected in the price of $2500.

• Lifespan walking pads: Lifespan is a high-end brand of electric walking pads. The steep prices start at $1000 but are made for long-term and intense usage.

• Urevo 2 in 1 walking pad: A cheap alternative often recommended. It’s supposed to be relatively quiet. But at a price of ~$200 don’t expect it to last long or be super quiet. As mentioned earlier the cheap models usually become louder over time and tend to fail quickly.

• Goyouth 2 in 1 walking pad: Similar to the Urevo the Goyouth is often recommended. The price is around $300. Some buyers have used it for a long time although don’t expect it to be very durable in general.

• A1 Pro WalkingPad: At $500 this is appears to be more of a mid-level walking pad. Based on reviews on Reddit it seems to be the same generic model under the hood though.

Electric walking pads become louder over time

“I live in an apartment house and don’t want to disturb my next-door neighbors with my walking pad several hours a day. My walking pad back then was already a year old and became quite loud. So I started looking for a quiet walking pad and found the Kuipers K1.

One of its reviews explicitly mentioned that it was much quieter than the exact one I used at the time. So the decision was simple and I pulled the trigger.

Everything was great. The K1 was indeed much more quiet. At least at first.

After 6 months of usage, it turned out to be even louder than my previous walking pad. I lubricated it regularly and maintained it properly. But no chance.”

Walking pads tend to be somewhat quiet at first but become louder over time. But most reviews are written by people who used it only for a short time. No wonder you see a lot of 5-star ratings.

Here’s what my “quiet” Kuipers K1 sounds like after 9 months.

Conclusion

For beginners, the prices of high-end models like manual walking pads or the ones by Unfit and Lifespan might be shocking. But if you’re planning to use it regularly

• the higher price will pay off over the long run because they don't consume electricity (in the case of manual walking pads) and due to avoiding annoying returns and discussions with (low-quality) customer service.

• can be a great motivational factor for sticking with the new habit.