Technology in home quarantine played an important role in our life during the Corona pandemic, and was able to often get us out of situations of inactivity or depression by linking spiraling people or doing activities with virtual reality technology.
With Oculus Quest virtual reality glasses and a fitness app called BoxVR, you can strengthen your fitness by hitting bright glowing bodies or avoiding barriers flying in your face in conjunction with rock or pop music accompanied by dancing. Or the drum.
This technology transforms games into good fitness exercises that motivate the user to walk and eat healthy, which is what the founders of the "Box VR" application Sam Cole and Samir Barova hope to achieve through their company "FitXR".
"We are not looking at ourselves as a gaming studio, but as a fitness company," says Cole, adding that the creation of the application was to their conviction that "the next computing platform after the smartphone will be a kind of mixed reality glasses ... and fitness halls will become everywhere."
Investors are also seeing this shift to virtual reality, as the UK company, FTXR, has announced that it has secured $ 7.5 million in financing from a group of investors in addition to the government agency, Innovate UK.
Cole and Barova met at the Business School before FTXR was founded in 2016, taking advantage of Cole's background in finance and Barova's position as a game developer.
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There is also an emerging community of virtual reality fitness, starting with Youtube users who post BoxVR exercises and evaluate VR apps and games based on calories burned per minute, and compared to real exercises like tennis, rowing and cycling.
Calorie burning appears to be the main measure of virtual reality fitness in 2020, but the appeal of fitness exercises through virtual reality is in the enjoyment the user feels, as he can greatly integrate into sports.
This is confirmed by Bojana Knezevic, a founder of the virtual reality company Holodia, which is developing technology for virtual exercises on rowing machines and bicycles in the home or gym.
"Combining complete immersion, helping people to forget that they are exercising, playing and competing, and motivating them to push hard, are the reasons that VR fitness attracts more and more to the general public," she says.
"On the other hand, the freedom granted by developing VR content means that you do not have to restrict yourself to traditional sports, as you can make your body move and exercise in whatever way you want ... In fact, this is where creativity and imagination blend with the science of sports and push more Of innovation. "
As for the actual gyms, it may also play a role in encouraging this trend, as it will open again after the close. In Asia and the Middle East, Knysevich says, there is already a "new virtual gymnasium store".
And she adds that this was achieved with the glasses of this reality in their studios, in addition to virtual training programs, classes and training for members at home, pointing out that they are "adjusting their business models, investing virtual fitness and making sure that it is suitable for the future."
Meanwhile, Cole notes that gyms will always contain more equipment than a regular exerciser can do at home.
He asserts that virtual reality is not a killer for the gym yet, but it can be a substitute for some people and complementary to others, so this diversity in choice will look healthy in the near future.