VZfit

April 25, 2022

The Best Meta Quest Games for Mind, Body & Soul

Virtual reality (VR) gaming is pure escapism. That ability to put on a headset and be transported to any number of virtual worlds, going on quests, meeting friends, competing for leaderboards positions and much more. VR’s also a great way to warm up those muscles in the morning or destress at the end of the day with some virtual meditation. Here are some of the best ways on Meta Quest to keep your mind and body healthy.

The following apps are a mixture of fitness games to really get the blood pumping alongside those designed to help you unwind. So they’re listed in no particular order, simply some of the ones the gmw3 team like.

Synth Riders

Everyone needs a bit of get-up and go in the morning so why not start the day with a rhythm action game. Meta Quest has some excellent ones in the store and one that’s definitely worth a look is Synth Riders.

Originally released with loads of Synthwave, Dubstep and other electronic beats, the videogame has greatly expanded to artists such as Lindsey Stirling, Muse, and Caravan Palace. Equally, Synth Riders has added plenty of new functionality, tracking calories, multiplayer, a 360-degree spin mode and much more. Thus you can always wake up in the morning knowing there’s something different to try.

Les Mills Bodycombat

If you’re after a more tailored workout experience then why not try one of the latest titles to arrive for Meta Quest, Les Mills Bodycombat. Bringing the world-famous workout into VR, you’ll find a perfect blend of fitness and martial arts all in one spot.

Featuring personal trainers that keep you motivated throughout each session, Les Mills Bodycombat has workout plans designed for those just starting their fitness journey and those looking for a more advanced workout. Utilising a full-body workout style, you’ll go from a few light jabs and hooks to squats, hammer fists and uppercuts, pushing that intensity with each session.

If you’re after a more fitness-focused approach to VR rather than a hectic rhythm game then this is a good place to start, and there’s no monthly subscription.

Tripp

Now let’s switch to a far more chilled VR experience, Tripp. Winner of Best VR Meditation App by Men’s Health, Tripp has over 75 immersive mindfulness techniques to help relax and lift your mood.

Sit down and get comfy as Tripp takes you on an almost psychedelic journey through amazing environments, immersing you in waves of sound whilst encouraging breathing techniques to help enhance that sense of calm. Try the demo and you’ll feel like jelly.

Tripp is one of the few apps to offer a free trial followed by either a one-off purchase of $34.99 for lifetime access or a monthly subscription of $4.99, making access as stress-free as possible.

Guided Meditation VR

As an alternate to Tripp there’s always Guided Meditation VR. The name kind of says it all, enjoy a selection of over 30 hours of guided meditation experiences focused on Anxiety, Depression, Maternity, Resilience, Sleep, and Zen.

Set within 40+ beautiful environments, the meditation experience is enhanced with over 200 relaxing audio tracks as well as customisations options. Turn off the music for example or activate a timer for a more regulated experience. Or how about switching on the “Float On” mode, gently floating automatically through the peaceful environments.

Ahh, starting to feel super relaxed already, plus Guided Meditation VR is a one-off purchase.

FitXR

Time to get back in shape and for that you’ll need the aptly named FitXR. Originally starting out as a boxing-themed experience the videogame has grown to include Dance and HIIT workout studios.

There are a range of classes depending on whether you’re after a 10-minute warm-up or a far more intensive 30-minute sweat fest. All the workouts are designed in-house by professional fitness instructors for a variety of music genres, so you can work out to rock, dance, RnB and more. Plus there’s a multiplayer so six friends can join in, adding a competitive edge as everyone strives for the best score.

Much like a gym membership, FitXR has an initial 7-day trial followed by a monthly membership of $9.99 (£7.99 GBP).

(Note: There’s a similar game called Supernatural which is subscription-based but its region locked to North America so gmw3 hasn’t included it in the main list.)

The Thrill of the Fight

How about an oldie but a goldie. Available since 2019, Thrill of the Fight puts you slap bang in the middle of the ring. This is one of those titles which doesn’t offer lots of flashy extras, just you and an opponent to punch it out. There are training areas with a speedball, punching bag and more to fine-tune your skills. The fights themselves are some of the best you’ll get in VR, no arms flailing here, you need to be accurate and punch with intention.

Which means one hell of an arm workout. Plus it relies on a lot of room-scale movement and footwork to really get the best out of it so make sure to clear some space.

One of the most unique fitness games available in VR, let alone on Meta Quest, VZfit was originally a cycling experience. And it still is, sort of.

VZfit employs the power of Google Maps so you can cycle the roads of the world, all without leaving your living room. Create your own routes or cycle pre-made ones, switching between radio stations for some tunes or listening to the optional personal trainer. VZfit has really benefited from its addition of a feature called the Exerboard, doing away with the exercise bike so you can step, lunge, squat and wave those arms with no additional equipment.

Again, this is another 7-day trial followed by a monthly membership scheme of $9.99. While the Exerboard portion of VZfit doesn’t require an exercise bike, to really get the most out of the experience you will need one plus a cadence sensor (about £30/$30). Not exactly cheap but if you’ve already got most of the kit then it makes more sense.

Guided Tai Chi

From the same team behind Guided Meditation VR is the ancient art of Tai Chi. Rather than sitting on your ass trying to relax why not employ this Chinese martial art that’s been practised for centuries for defence training and meditation. Guided Tai Chi has over 200 Tai Chi inspired workouts to help you find inner peace ranging from 3-minute to 60-minute sessions.

Feel that tension and stress float away with sessions set within scenic natural environments featuring calming music. Tai Chi has plenty of health benefits, strengthening and toning your body whilst aiding mindfulness. Plus, Guided Tai Chi has a few customisation options to suit most players needs.

REAKT Performance Trainer

When it comes to achieving your fitness goals stats can really help keep you motivated and focused, giving you info on where you’re doing well and where improvements can be made. REAKT Performance Trainer is one of those VR fitness apps designed to help in that endeavour, combining fast-paced training with real-time feedback to help monitor your progress.

After completing an exercise designed to improve your reaction time and hand to eye coordination you’ll get a wealth of information that’ll show your exact hand position, your reaction vs your field of view and more.

Oh, and don’t forget about Oculus Move, the built-in app on Quest that provides additional fitness tracking aids.

April 19, 2021

Feeling the Scenic Burn With VZfit

I’ve always wanted to explore more of Scotland. It isn’t that far away and I’ve only visited as far north as Glasgow, so there’s a whole Highlands adventure to be had. The need to get out and about has never weighed heavier than it has recently and I‘m sure many of you have already decided on where you’d want to travel first. But what about right now? And what if you could explore far-flung places whilst you get healthier at the same time? That’s been the goal of VirZOOM for the last few years, and with the recent arrival of its VZfit app for Oculus Quest making it easier than ever, now seemed as good a time as any to get back on the bike.

If you’ve not heard of VirZOOM before the company originally started out in VR hardware, launching a virtual reality (VR) bike controller in 2016 in combination with two apps VZfit Play and VZfit Explore. The first featured a bunch of basic mini-games such as riding horseback whilst lassoing people or piloting a helicopter through a canyon. But it was the latter VZfit Explore that really caught people’s attention, using Google Maps’ Street View imagery so you could cycle through Rome or the Alaskan mountains.

On your bike…

And it’s that experience that has been refined into VZfit, enabling you to cycle almost anywhere in the world, without leaving your living room. It’s this sole feature that sets VZfit apart from every other VR fitness app on the Quest platform. Whilst all the rest focus on rhythm action elements here you can simply enjoy the open road – and it certainly helps the whole illusion having a desk fan on nearby wafting a gentle breeze.

Opening up VZfit you’re presented with two options, continue with or without a bike. Without and you’ll hop onto the virtual ‘exerboard’ (more on that later), or with and you can connect a cadence sensor to use a normal exercise bike. VirZOOM has now moved to just being a software company so it doesn’t make the bike controllers anymore – which VRFocus was using – instead, opening up its software so that adding a $20 sensor to an exercise bike you already own removes a lot of the friction.

It can still be a little fiddly, to begin with, however, as you still need the Oculus controllers whilst sat on the bike to go through the options and get yourself set up. The quickest way was to dive straight into a pre-set course like the nice long roads of Colorado. There’s a wealth of options to tailor and refine your cycling experience, selecting a nice leisurely 10-mile cycle or going for a gruelling 50+ miles. Once on a ride, it’s best to delve into the in-game options as you can adjust what information is shown like distance and time, comfort options and crucially…turning.

This is essentially a cycling title after all so you can choose to steer around corners by physically leaning, aiding that immersive aspect. It does feel a little weird leaning left and right on a stationary bike yet after a few miles that natural feeling does kick in. You can always select auto turn if it isn’t to your liking.

Street View in VR

What you really want to know is how well Google Maps’ Street View imagery translates into VR, taking flat 2D images and dropping you in the centre. Good, to a point. Now let’s be clear here, the method doesn’t offer a seamless journey through picturesque countryside because each image is taken a few metres apart. So a long open US road with distant mountains works very well, whilst a tight, winding road in Europe doesn’t fair as well. Also, the fewer cars the better, it does break reality somewhat when there are too many flat cars in view.

Google’s imagery can also be a little erratic so certain parts of the road may jump between different parts of the day for example. Thankfully, these moments weren’t too often. One option VZfit gives you is the ability to make your own route, pinning an A point and B point on a map to cycle. I set up a route around Lock Ness – part of my Scottish adventure – and there were no real issues, just a pleasant ride around the loch. The only downside was not being able to actually stop, jump off the bike and take in the view.

Most importantly, it sure as hell beats staring at the four walls of my living room whilst providing some much-needed motivation. I quite quickly forgave the occasional janky imagery as it was refreshing to cycle somewhere new. Even more so when it came to mountainous regions which my fitness level is nowhere near achieving in the real world. Plus you can always adjust the tension on the bike for an increased workout.

No bike required

So what if you don’t have an exercise bike, don’t want one or simply don’t have space for one? As mentioned, that’s where the exerboard comes in and where VZfit really adds value for money. As the screenshots showcase, think of the exerboard as a circular exercise mat on wheels, the more you move the faster it’ll go – not too fast mind you.

You can still head out on all the same routes, no difference there, but you’re not on your own as there’s a trainer with you. They’ll be up in front encouraging you to keep moving with a bunch of workout routines for you to copy. These range from jogging on the spot to lunges, knee raises and loads more, about 50 at the moment, making you work muscles you’d forgotten about.

Because this option provided a full-body workout with less hassle than grabbing the bike from the corner of the room, using the exerboard soon became my go-to choice in VZfit. Being able to grab the Oculus Quest, open up the app and continue a route from where I left off was faultless, and fun. There’s even a basic radio offering a selection of genres if you need some music – use this Spotify trick if you have a premium account. You can also take a selfie next to a famous monument should the mood take you.

I could walk 500 miles…

VZfit is part of this new slate of VR titles for Oculus Quest which offer a subscription model. Rather than a one-off videogame price you sign-up for a monthly membership – like a gym but without all the mirrors and having to, you know, leave the house – which is $9.99. You can download the app and try it out for seven days before deciding on a membership to see if it’s right for you.

Signing up for a subscription is always a personal choice, weighing up finances, value for money and whether the service is good enough against rivals. As I like to travel, for me VZfit ticks both mental and physical wellness boxes. My body’s getting the workout it needs and my mind has room to breathe and discover new places. So I don’t see the monthly admission cost as too much of a sting to cycle the fjords of Iceland.

April 15, 2021

Facebook Brings Subscription Support To Quest

In a new Oculus blog post, Facebook announced official support for subscriptions services on the Oculus Quest platform. Rec Room, VZFit and more will be the first apps to adopt the new model.

Some apps, like fitness app Supernatural, already adopt a subscription model on Quest that the user has to set up externally, outside of VR and the Oculus ecosystem. The app would then perform a check to ensure that the user is subscribed each time Supernatural is launched. Now, apps can implement native support for a subscription models on the Quest platform, along with free trial support as well.

According to the post, subscription types will differ per title. “For some, you’ll need a subscription to access the service. For others, the subscription is optional to unlock even more content and features.”

Included in today’s line-up is FitXR, the UK-based fitness service formerly known as BoxVR. We’ve been hands-on with some of its new updates already. Rec Room is also adding Rec Room Plus, which gives subscribers 6,000 tokens, weekly items and exclusive store options. VZfit is another fitness service launching today, too.

Elsewhere there’s subscriber options for meditative VR app, TRIPP, the vSpatial collaboration app and even Tribe XR’s VR DJing.

In a statement provided to UploadVR, Facebook said that it had already been working with those few developers that offered subscription models before today. “We’ve worked with a number of developers over the last year to bring subscription content to our platform even before our Oculus subscription support was ready to go. Those devs are now in the process of transitioning over to our native system. Going forward, immersive VR apps that monetize with subscriptions on our platform will use our system.”

If you’ve already got a subscription with an existing service that you started before official support was brought in, you will still have access to all the content you purchased.

In the case of apps like Rec Room, access to the app and all existing content will remain as is, with an optional “Rec Room Plus” subscription added into the fray.

You can read more about each app’s individual subscription offerings over on the Oculus blog.

April 12, 2021April 15, 2021

Explore the World and Exercise With VZfit on Oculus Quest

VirZOOM has been in the virtual reality (VR) fitness game for quite a while now, starting off with a bike controller in 2016. But hardware – especially VR peripherals – is a difficult business to be in, seeing VirZOOM pivot to being a software company that allows you to cycle around the world on a standard exercise bike. Today, VirZOOM has announced the launch of VZfit, its complete fitness app for Oculus Quest.

Fitness has become an exciting part of the VR industry, with apps like Supernatural and FitXR heavily promoting their healthy credentials whilst others including Beat Saber, Synth Riders, Audio Trip and more equally provide energetic sessions which can be tracked using Oculus Move or YUR. But they all tend to be rhythm action experiences, whereas VZfit is still sticking to its cycling roots whilst expanding its potential by removing the bike altogether.

VZfit‘s unique feature is the use of Google Maps so you can cycle around almost anywhere in the world, following pre-created routes or your own. If you have an exercise bike then an additional cadence sensor is all that’s required to connect the app to the bike. However, VZfit’s latest addition is the ‘exerboard’ which allows you to follow a virtual trainers workout routine with feedback and encouragement along the route.

“We wanted to combine the limitless possibilities of the world around us with the limitless possibilities of VR,” said Eric Janszen, Co-founder and CEO, VirZOOM in a statement. “Take a selfie at the Coliseum or in front of the Sydney Opera House, or simply take a trip down memory lane – whatever location you choose, with VZfit a world of adventure is literally at your fingertips. Our experiences have always been an exhilarating mix of the real world and the fantastical, but this is the most accessible VR fitness app that uses global exploration as a key motivator, making it so fresh and engaging that exercise almost becomes the side product. Especially in a time when none of us can travel in reality, it already has our community completely hooked.”

“After the success of VZplay and Explorer, we wanted to reduce the friction of needing special cardio hardware so we could expand our reach to anyone wanting to stay fit and healthy,” adds Eric Malafeew, Co-founder and CTO, VirZOOM. “We also wanted to expand beyond pure game play to tap into those travel aspirations and the endless options available to us in the real world.”

VZfit is available today for Oculus Quest. The app is free to download with a 7-day trial period available to test it out. After that it’s a subscription service costing $9.99 USD per month with VirZOOM also planning on rolling out a discounted annual membership in the near future. For further updates on VZfit, keep reading VRFocus.

April 12, 2021

VZfit Fitness Service Comes To Oculus Quest Store With Google Street View

VZfit launches its subscription fitness service this week on the Oculus Store for Quest with smart bike and Google Maps Street View integration.

The workout service hits the Oculus Store on April 15, though it was previously available for Quest outside the store. VZfit’s focus is on transporting users to exercise virtually anywhere around the world using Google Maps Street View.

The street view data is taken and mapped onto the environment around you, allowing you to work out in any environment and move along roads while exercising just like real life. The developers, VirZOOM, say there’s over 10 million miles of street view data to explore using the app, which also allows you to workout with a friend and create your own virtual exercise routes.

VZfit has Strava and Fitbit support, alongside connectivity with “most smart bike devices and trainer sensors.” The app works with and without cardio machines — there are full body workouts as well — but you’ll also be able to purchase a cadence sensor (VirZOOM recommends this one) if you want to connect the app to a stationary exercise bike that doesn’t have smart bike functionality.

VirZOOM says the app is aimed at “mid-level fitness groups who are looking for regular, 30-minute exercise sessions.” Beta testing on thousands of Quest users suggests most users are in their 30s or 40s, with an “almost even” split between males and females.

The app is adopting a subscription model with a free 7-day trial and then $9.99 a month. A discounted annual membership rate will be “available soon”. Developers say the service also supports popular music that can play during your workout through feed.fm and you can have “unlimited” family accounts through a single Oculus ID.

VZfit is available April 15 on the Oculus Store for Oculus Quest.