This Startup Wants To Turn Your Blah Exercise Routine Into An Adrenaline-Pumping Virtual Reality Game

Though virtual reality has been around for a few years now, interest seems to have petered off over time, at least compared to the groundbreaking change-all technology we thought it would be decades ago.

The main problem lies with finding meaningful applications for VR. Aside from gaming and entertainment, there just don’t seem to be a lot of use cases just yet. But that doesn’t stop a few startups from trying anyway.

Black Box VR is one such attempt and a pretty decent one at that. It’s an exercise startup based in Boise, Idaho, one that’s using VR to make your gym exercise more entertaining and rewarding. Basically, they want you to be playing VR games as you exercise as a way to motivate you.

Debuting at CES earlier this month, Black Box VR was called Engadget's “best startup of CES 2018”. It’s simple really, using proprietary exercise hardware, and a custom VR experience, combined with an HTC Vive headset. Users step into a literal black box, about 8 feet by 8 feet, designed to cut out external light and sound and keep your experience immersive. You strap on the headset and the company’s motion-tracking forearm bands, and the game begins. 

Right now, there’s only one game experience. You stand in an arena facing a humanoid digital opponent, eventually fighting your way up to mythical creatures. While you’re strapped into the exercise hardware also in the room, performing a standing chest press will throw arcane projectiles at your enemy. Depending on how far along in the arena you are, your opponent might take more shots before they go down, each set of reps being dynamically adjusted by the machine to get a little harder. That’s one of the crucial things in fact - because the computer adjusts the machine’s resistance difficulty for you over time, you never have to leave the VR simulation to manually adjust anything.

Black Box VR’s creators say that, not only can it make your exercise regimen much more fun thanks to the game you’re playing, but the automatically adjusted resistance means it’s safer, preventing you from overextending yourself and causing a muscle injury. 

“We are big believers in the ability of technology and emerging platforms to change people's lives,” says Preston Lewis, CCO and co-founder of Black Box VR. The dumbbell has remained largely unchanged for centuries, you’re essentially just lifting rocks and putting them down as you stare in a mirror, bored out of your mind. In Black Box you will utilize strength, agility, balance and speed in a larger than life virtual world where we are able to harness the nature that is brought out in video games - dedication, determination, and longevity - and turn it into real, physical workouts that challenge both mind and body."

Right now, the setup is expensive and will be limited to boutique gyms the company plans to set up across the US. Eventually, though, the idea is to develop home kits that people can set up and use in the comfort of their own homes, whether a weight machine, treadmill, or other exercise devices. Each one, of course, will have a custom-built VR experience to make sure you’re never bored of going to the gym again.