Our next update

[Steve59405]

What is the possibility of making the Virzoom bike or VZ fit controller compatible with regular VR games on the Go/Quest? Right now you can purchase an Xbox bluetooth controller and use it to play some games on the Go. If I was able to use my Virzoom bike as a controller for my Go games then that would be so awesome! Especially some of the flying games.

[emalafeew]

We were able to do this with the Vive on PC though our VirZOOM Gamepad Emulator, but it's not possible on the Go.

Remember, we get our turning information from the VR headset itself, which the bike doesn't know about. It was only possible on the Vive because the custom drivers we installed could query it. It's not possible to insert custom drivers into the Go that could read the headset.

The preferred approach would be to convince those game's developers to incorporate our SDK to provide a VZfit control option. That way they'd also get to use our custom motion to feel the best with a bike. We don't have a budget yet to offer them, but feel free to write the developers of any games you'd like to see work with VZfit, and say we'd be happy to do the integration.

[Steve59405]

Thanks for the explanation. So are you familiar with the Cronusmax Plus? It's a controller emulator that looks like a USB flash drive and you can plug it into your Playstation or Xbox and it allows you to use other controllers. I know it should allow you to use your product with regular games on consoles like Playstation. The problem is that I'm not smart enough to create an SDK file to make your product compatible with CronusMax and I can't get any support from their community because nobody is familiar with your product so I can't get anybody to create the file. Is there any chance you folks could look into creating the file so it can work? I would be willing to lend you my Cronusmax Plus for testing.

[Steve59405]

Here is a link to Cronusmax. It allows you to use virtually any controller with your console (PS4). All it would take is someone who knows how to do "GPC scripting language" to map the Virzoom to the Cronus so they can get the file added to their list of compatible controllers. I have no clue what that even means so that's why I can't do it myself. Your business would literally explode overnight if someone could play a regular game like Call of Duty while using a bike to move. 

Here is a short video showing what it can do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti...a41Ztivc7U

https://cronusmax.com/

[emalafeew]

You could hookup the VZ Bike to Call of Duty on PC with our Gamepad Emulator (it didn't require VR). Nobody did, though I got it working with Skyrim. It wasn't a great experience because our bike buttons only allowed digital control over your viewpoint and direction. It would have been nice to blow up, but our core mission is providing great VR exercise which we do with our games, and allow others to do with our SDK.

Note the Cronusmax requires "compatible controllers" which sound like bluetooth HID controllers, which neither the VZ Bike nor VZfit Sensor Kit support. We've also stopped selling the VZ Bike, and it doesn't sound like you could control just speed with our VZ Sensor and your viewpoint and direction with a separate controller. So hope we can make some fun games for you ourselves!

[Steve59405]

Well that's a bummer but I appreciate you looking into it. Perhaps that can at least give you folks some ideas for expanding your technology in the future. There are so many possibilities out there with all the new technology.

[emalafeew]

I continue to enjoy the VZfit apps and am getting to know the nuances of various games and events. I love having some entertainment/distraction/connections to help with workouts.

A few observations and a story. My children have tried the VZfit and are hooked. Its just fun for them. They talk about it a lot, comparing experiences, and frequently ask to “ride the VirZOOM”. In particular they are into the games. As a parent its great to see them so willingly engaging in exercise on a voluntary basis. Also I would think this bodes well for future adoption, what with the video game generation being young and prominent.

My wife used to work in the local school system with special needs children. One of her go to supports was moderate exercise which she noticed provided a positive effect on behavior and productivity. A few days ago, my wife ran into the mother of one of these children. The conversation turned to the value of exercise and the mom lamented that her son is only interested in video games, fixated on them even. If only there was a way to get him to exercise, she said, it would really help.

And just like that a lightbulb went on, maybe VirZOOM could bridge exercise and video in a productive fashion. We have forwarded the VirZOOM site and background to the mother and will follow up if there is traction and something valuable to learn.

I also came upon this video as I was curious about VR environments and their fit (pun intended?) with people on the spectrum.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_f...79%2F&_rdr

---

Eric,

Have you ever considered a VZfit app based on a spin class? This may be blasphemy for street riders, not sure, but I thought about it while on an upward sloping hill in Le Tour event. I tightened the resistance and it reminded me of spin classes.

Just a thought.

Thank you for all the hard work, I am having a ton of fun in the VR worlds you and your team have created.

We feel especially lucky that our products can help kids with exercise and therapy.  We've found that VR is natural for them, and it's great to hear that studies have shown a benefit with people on the spectrum.  Thank you very much for the video link, I've shared with our team for encouragement.

We've been thinking about spin classes in a few ways. One is whether to focus on people who would get together in a shared space (for gyms) vs people who'd coordinate to be online at the same time (for home). The other is the environment: Le Tour or Explorer naturally represents the hills that instructors get classes to imagine, and your position relative to other riders would show who's on top. But it might also be fun to make a virtual spin class in VR, by putting everyone into a virtual room on virtual spin bikes with the music and lighting you'd expect. The third way is what kind of instructor--could an AI instructor be good enough or do we need a live instructor watching and driving everyone into shape?

In all cases, the challenges are getting that many people to coordinate, licensing the music, and building or representing an instructor that whips everyone into shape.  If we could take a step-wise approach what would you tackle first?

[robkay]

Just to say thanks for the workout game ideas everyone, they're now on our backlog for consideration.

I'd personally love to prototype all of them if only there were time! Mountain Biking is one I wrote a pitch for previously, and I made a very simple Spin Class prototype too. Dog fighting WW1 planes, riding on the moon/mars, pegasus raindbow tag, cowboy gun level, roller coasters, all sound fun... and I enjoyed Eagle Flight too!

[emalafeew]

Bringing this thread back to our actual next update:

We are in the home stretch and hope to release it this Friday!

VZfit Explorer is getting a more powerful Ride system, which allows you to enter and follow Google directions to a destination, share rides you've made with everyone, find shared rides by newness and popularity, mark your favorite rides, see thumbnails and more about each ride. When you have a destination the HUD will show your progress and in the world you'll see a physical end gate. You'll also be able to login and play with any VZfit account, like VZfit Play.

VZfit Play is getting our Avatar Upgrade system, where the total coins accumulated from each game unlocks new skins and capabilities for your avatars. For instance, your Helicopter can gain the ability to tag targets quickly and fire homing missiles. These are long-term rewards that we'd love to keep expanding the more you all play the games. We're also adding an option to lower the HUD, show heartrate for original bike users, and several bug fixes.

Hope you all like these changes, and we're considering everything you've said on the forums for our next sprint planning!

[emalafeew]

The new Explorer and Play builds are out now. See their Updates threads for more details!

These are pretty big updates so if you find anything broken, please say and we'll fix ASAP.