Tell us about yourself

[emalafeew]

Introduce yourself to the VZfit community on this thread!

I'll start with ourselves.  VirZOOM was founded in 2015 in Harvard Square by a pair of Erics and a team of game developers and hardware engineers.  We were leads on Guitar Hero, Rockband, Dance Central, and the Wiimote accelerometer, all designed to get people moving.  With VirZOOM we came together to make the best virtual fitness experience possible.

We have a lot of tips to share and are keen to extend VZfit to your needs, so don't hesitate to ask questions!

   

[robkay]

   

Yup, we're all ears  

P.S. press preview on your reply for formatting controls.

[PeteMac]

Hi! I'm Pete MacDonald, Art Director at VirZOOM. I'm responsible for all the in-game art and VirZOOM's branding and videos...graphic design, anything visual. I worked with Malafeew at Harmonix for 9 years, and before that at Turbine for a long time. I'm at VirZOOM because it's an opportunity to use video game design and Virtual Reality to make the world a healthier place. I'm a husband, a dad, a motorcyclist, a kayaker, a traveler, a sketchbook barfly but I don't like talking about myself so this ends...now.

[Natepepper]

Hi, I'm Nate Pepper, new beta member based in Houston, Texas. I've been indoor cycling for 10 years and am interested in applications of e-sports and VR to cycling. Off the bike I work in B2B marketing. 

I've been waiting for a commercial VR cycling product for a long time and you guys have a very impressive platform. Looking forward to seeing it grow and develop in the future.

[emalafeew]

I've been waiting for a commercial VR cycling product for a long time and you guys have a very impressive platform. Looking forward to seeing it grow and develop in the future.

Welcome Nate! We'll be blogging about our roadmap soon and want to hear from everyone.

[edmg]

Home user who's had a Virzoom bike for eighteen months or so. Haven't used it much lately for two reasons: 1. my PC keeps crashing while playing VR games, so I'm waiting for the next gen of CPUs to come out before I build a new one, and 2. you moved the heart-rate monitor from right in front of me to above my field of view, and, since I'm getting on a bit in years, I don't want to die .

I have a Go and I'm going to buy a Quest when they come out, so looking forward to trying out the new software.

Edit: Cool, the Explorer software is the kind of thing I was hoping to see developed when I first bought the bike. Obviously there are limitations with only the Streetview data to go by, but I'm quite impressed by what you've been able to do with it so far.

[emalafeew]

Home user who's had a Virzoom bike for eighteen months or so. Haven't used it much lately for two reasons: 1. my PC keeps crashing while playing VR games, so I'm waiting for the next gen of CPUs to come out before I build a new one, and 2. you moved the heart-rate monitor from right in front of me to above my field of view, and, since I'm getting on a bit in years, I don't want to die .

I have a Go and I'm going to buy a Quest when they come out, so looking forward to trying out the new software.

Edit: Cool, the Explorer software is the kind of thing I was hoping to see developed when I first bought the bike. Obviously there are limitations with only the Streetview data to go by, but I'm quite impressed by what you've been able to do with it so far.

Thank you! We feel Explorer has a ton of potential too and is a good fit for all-in-one VR performance.  We'll look into an option to lower the HUD, it's current location was set to not obscure gameplay.  Note all VZfit games now have the same HUD for showing workout stats. We moved all the feedback you need to play each game into the VR scene and avatar, which hopefully helps you with games like Pegasus and Cowboy.

[justkelly]

Hi. Another home user. First, thanks for releasing Explorer early; that was an unexpected treat. Wore myself out playing with it last night. Do have a few suggestions:

1) I understand trying to ride in cities is kinda out of scope for this, but you might put a note to that effect in the route-finding suggestions.
2) Toward that end, I tried Times Square (just to see how it would handle it) and the bike got out of alignment vertically, with the "nose" pointed too far downward. Re-centering didn't fix.
3) Some way to save favorite starting points would be great. I've been plying with Wander (a similar app) and saving all sorts of neat places, so this would be a nice feature to add.
4) Also, a way of sharing favorites would be nice, maybe a way to submit them online and have them available through a menu in the main interface.
5) Maybe a "Random Location" button?
6) Possible map inset to show where you actually are?
7) Why does it ask for mike permissions? There some kind of voice thing there I haven't found? If search-by-voice is coming, then I can understand. Otherwise, it just seems odd.

Sorry such a long list, but really I am very impressed with it, and can't wait to explore some more. Great job, folks.

[emalafeew]

Hi. Another home user. First, thanks for releasing Explorer early; that was an unexpected treat. Wore myself out playing with it last night. Do have a few suggestions:

1) I understand trying to ride in cities is kinda out of scope for this, but you might put a note to that effect in the route-finding suggestions.
2) Toward that end, I tried Times Square (just to see how it would handle it) and the bike got out of alignment vertically, with the "nose" pointed too far downward. Re-centering didn't fix.
3) Some way to save favorite starting points would be great. I've been plying with Wander (a similar app) and saving all sorts of neat places, so this would be a nice feature to add.
4) Also, a way of sharing favorites would be nice, maybe a way to submit them online and have them available through a menu in the main interface.
5) Maybe a "Random Location" button?
6) Possible map inset to show where you actually are?
7) Why does it ask for mike permissions? There some kind of voice thing there I haven't found? If search-by-voice is coming, then I can understand. Otherwise, it just seems odd.

Sorry such a long list, but really I am very impressed with it, and can't wait to explore some more. Great job, folks.

This is great feedback!  A few of these are in our roadmap which we'll share soon, like saving and sharing favorites, random rides, and map insets.  For now you can use Recent Rides to go back to places you want to reride.  In our ride-finding tips we mention avoiding foregrounds and backgrounds with a lot of varying parallax, and could call out that happens a lot more in cities than cross-country.  Lastly about mic permissions, you're correct we don't need them now, it's an automated requirement from Unity we haven't found the cause of yet.

[Julia]

I'm a new home beta user and just received my sensor kit yesterday and expect to complete the set up and try it out today.  I have an old Schwinn recumbent bike--don't know the model.

The crank arms for my pedals are smooth and cylindrical (no flat sides), about 3/4" diameter, and close to the body of the bike.  So my concern here is that the sensor may rotate around and bump into the body of the bike.  Will have to try it out and see if that is the case.  My initial thought was that it would be nice if the back of the sensor had a higher friction surface and also would like the option of a smaller elastic band for a tighter fit.  I like the feel and friction of the elastic bands.  I realize it's difficult to make a one-size-fits-all solution.

My second observation was that the handles for my bike are about 1 1/2" in diameter--too big for the clasp on the button.  Do you have a suggestion for dealing with that?

Looking forward to my first test ride.