When it comes to gym mirrors, the price often reflects the quality and features they offer. But which features are actually necessary? Let’s find out which factors impact workout mirror pricing and what is worth paying for.
Investing in good mirrors with a few key features for your home gym is worth it up to a point. Getting the size, thickness, and safety features right is key but, beyond that point is not necessary since there won’t be any noticeable benefits.
Let’s take a deeper look at all the different features gym mirrors can/should have and which ones you can ignore and their impact on price.
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Are More Expensive Gym Mirrors Better?
In general, paying more for a mirror will get you something better. Of course, there are always outliers that are expensive for no good reason.
For an overview of how much you should expect to pay for a gym mirror, click the link to find that information.
When it comes to gym mirrors, the price is often a reflection of quality and features. While more expensive gym mirrors generally offer superior attributes, such as better reflective quality, durability, and safety features, it’s essential to evaluate your needs. Some of the features that come at a premium are worth paying for while others are not.
More expensive gym mirrors are better up to a point but after that, it’s not worth the extra money anymore.
Factors Affecting Gym Mirror Pricing
Let’s dive into the main factors affecting gym mirror pricing and which ones are important or up to which point they are important.
- Size: Bigger mirrors are more expensive. At a minimum, you need a 3’x5’ mirror although 4’x6’ is better. Bigger than that is not really necessary but can be done for aesthetic reasons like covering a whole wall.
- Material: Different materials have different prices. High-quality, large acrylic mirrors tend to be the most expensive, then tempered glass, standard glass, and finally low-quality acrylic.
- Backing: Most mirrors for gyms have a safety backing. This is basically a coating that holds the glass together if it breaks to prevent shards from flying around. This feature is definitely worth it in a gym.
- Thickness: Thicker mirrors are more expensive because more material is used. The extra thickness makes the mirror sturdier, less prone to flexing, and vibrations. Super thick mirrors aren’t really necessary unless you’re dropping very heavy weights from overhead.
- Type of glass: There is standard glass and tempered glass. Tempered glass has gone through extra treatment to make it harder. It also breaks up into less dangerous shards when broken. Tempered glass is the way to go for gym mirrors but it costs more.
- Finish: For frameless mirrors, this is mostly about the edges. Finishing the edges properly looks nicer although it’s not strictly necessary.
- Durability: Very cheap mirrors can get cloudy, corroded, or have an otherwise faulty reflective layer. Cheap mirrors are often also thinner and of lower quality materials which means they don’t last as long.
- Safety: The main safety features; tempered glass, and safety backing have already been mentioned. They are worth the money in a gym setting where the chance of something hitting the mirror is significant.
- Reflective Quality: More expensive mirrors tend to reflect your image much better than really cheap mirrors. In a gym, you want to see yourself without any distortions but it doesn’t really have to be the absolute best.
Price is not the only factor in choosing the right gym mirror. The factors above are described in more depth in this workout mirror buying guide.
Is The Most Expensive Mirror Right For Your Gym?
Should you just buy the most expensive mirror you can find? If you can afford it, sure, go ahead. Most people don’t have unlimited budgets though so some choices have to be made.
Here are which features a good gym mirror should have. Going beyond these features is fine but not necessary.
- Size: At least 3’x5’ but preferably 4’x6’. You can build a large mirror cheaper with smaller mirror tiles but this would create many seams between the tiles which distort the reflection. One big mirror is much better.
- Thickness: Ideally 5 mm or thicker. Many good gym mirrors are 6 mm (1/4”) thick.
- Safety: Tempered glass and safety backing. Or at the very least get one of the two if both is out of reach. High-quality acrylic mirrors are even safer but also much more expensive and are not necessary in most cases.
Just looking for those three features will get you a gym mirror that’s great for your home or garage gym. There is no need to go beyond this, the benefits you will get are not noticeable for most people.
Don’t want to wade through all these features and just want to find a great gym mirror that ticks all these boxes? Click the link to find my recommendation.
The Benefits of Investing in Higher-Quality Mirrors
If you’re on a budget, you might think the features I outlined above are still a bit too much. And yes, you will get a mirror that’s on the more expensive side (but not the most expensive) by following those guidelines.
Willing to compromise on these features? Here is a post that outlines the best budget alternatives to gym mirrors.
Don’t really want to spend that much money? Let me try to convince you that it’ll be worth it in the long run. Here’s what you get over cheaper options:
- Durability and longevity: Thick mirrors made from tempered glass are less prone to breaking and cracking which means the mirrors will last longer. Those features also mean you get a better quality product in general which increases longevity.
- Safety: The other side of the durability and longevity coin is safety. A gym is a place where many things and people move around. The chance of hitting and breaking a mirror is just much larger than in a bathroom for example. Imagine tripping over a dumbbell and falling into the mirror. Do you want sharp shards to fly everywhere or do you prefer the smaller, less sharp pieces of tempered glass?
- Clarity: Compared to standard glass mirrors, there isn’t much of a benefit. However, compared to cheap acrylic tile mirrors, the clarity of the reflection is just much better. The reflection is clearer and has fewer distortions. That means you can check your form and progress better.
- Ease of installation and maintenance: Many higher quality mirrors come with mounting hardware to make mounting easier and safer. Glass mirrors are also easier to maintain since acrylic scratches easily and can get cloudy if cleaned in the wrong way.
