VirZOOM has been reported on before regarding its efforts at making virtual reality (VR) into a way of promoting fitness and exercise with its bike peripheral which has been installed at various VR arcades, and even gyms and fitness centres in various locations around the world. Now the company hopes to move on to the next step with it’s new company partners, AMD and Life Fitness.
The company has been working with AMD since early May, with AMD providing the graphics cards to power high-end VR experiences at gyms and arcades where the VirZOOM peripheral is installed. VirZOOM have also been working with Samsung Gear VR on integrating the bike peripheral with the Gear VR headset to show health data as part of a heads-up display.
In addition, VirZOOM have secured a partnership with fitness equipment supplier Life Fitness to create a combined VR solution to be used with standard fitness equipment. The program has since expanded to various locations in Germany, Turkey, Hong Kong and the USA.
VirZOOM Arcade is free to download on PlayStation Network and Steam and is available for PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, though it does require the VirZOOM bike peripheral, which is available via the VirZOOM website for $399.95 (USD). The bike peripheral allows users to control the VR experience by pedalling and leaning, with a variety of experiences such as racing, flying or fighting available.
Using the new partnerships and funding, VirZOOM are hoping to grow the company further and expand its reach into other areas. VirZOOM are planning on announcing new products at E3 in Los Angeles on 13th June, 2017.
VRFocus will bring you further information on VirZOOM as it becomes available.
According to the copany, which operates in both America and Russia, ALT “allows [the] user to walk around with mobile VR as opposed to existing solutions which only work with head rotations.Other benefits include movement prediction with compensation of rendering lags, wide tracking zone, multi-user mode, and outdoor functionality.”