Normally you would do a walk-through if a gym employee or a friend since equipment doesn’t tend to move around in the gym. You should be oriented and familiar with a place like your gym.

At home if your gym equipment keeps moving a lot then you have a bigger issue at hand and labels aren’t gonna help you.

I don't ask permission to label equipment at home.

When I used a gym (before the pandemic), I didn't wind up needing labels as I memorized the locations of the machines I used. I considered labels at first, though, and would definitely have asked before doing anything.

Apart from braille labels, though, I thought of tagging machines with Way Around tags, Tiles, or something similar. Nowadays I might go with AirTags, if there were a way to prevent them from being stolen. This would let me find machines whose locations I'd forgotten, and with Way Around, would let other blind people use the same tags. But I never got past the pondering stage. Oh, and yes, I know Way Around tags wouldn't let me do AirTag-style locating.

If you’re talking about putting bump dots or the like on the gym’s equipment, asking permission is surely just common curtesy. Plus, it’s also a good way not to have them continually removing the labels during cleaning. Note, I hardly go to the gym, and have enough sight to muddle through without labels or bump dots, so I’ve never tried labeling machines. But I imagine any gym staff, not knowing what the labels were or why they were there, would just remove them.

Your own home equipment? It’s your. Do whatever you want to it.

I go to a small gym, so I mostly just ask the front desk if I need help with something. Often they will help set me up with the cardio machines. Otherwise I pretty much just feel my way around.

I thought about labeling at one point and asking if I could but never did. And I just memorized the position and where the certain buttons were. I also didn’t go to the gym all that much honestly. And it was a waste of money. So I didn’t go nearly enough to label. But yeah, maybe, I thought about asking and labeling but I didn’t end up doing it.

Sorry, forgot to specify. I was referring to equipment with touch pannels, such as treadmills. What about gyms in apartment complexes? How would you prevent other tenants from removing the labels?