Technology

Treading The Threshold with Virtual Fitness Apps

Posted by

Virtual Fitness Apps can help you set fitness goals and track the burned calories and minutes active across any app, or game in VR!

While there was a time (before 2020) when physical gyms and classes were the primary drivers of the industry. Gradually, the lockdown struck the economy and made people enclosed in their homes adopt the digitization of fitness. They could self-help themselves by taking their yoga sessions, and gym workouts from their homes.

while the process in which people were exposed to abrupt fitness was pretty cut and dry, certain apps and home programs that worked for the home in the light of COVID – 19 have now become a norm, a significant addition to their daily routine.

Why do we need fitness trainer apps stepping into 2023?

Well, the numbers don’t look promising, but it comes out of a lot of research!

The demand for well-being, fitness, and health has increased globally, ever since we faced natural disasters in the last few years. The number of fitness app users will exceed 86 million crossing 2022. Focussing on mental healthcare applications, female fitness apps, and wearable devices due to the pandemic. Also, female health mobile apps and home workout apps were the top fitness apps by the number of downloads.

Most In-Demand Physical Fitness Apps in 2022

Each week, your coach builds a new training plan to fit your schedule, goals, equipment and travel. Your coach tracks your progress, celebrates your wins and balances consistency and motivation – all through VR Fitness App. Examples of the 10 Best Fitness Apps for 2022 are Fiton, Beachbody On Demand, Nike Training Club, Burn.Fit, MyFitnessPal, Strong Workout Tracker, Jefit, SEVEN, Gymshark Training, and FitPlan.

Types of Generic Fitness Apps

Amongst the most important types of fitness apps, some are dedicated to diet and nutrition, some are for working out, and some are for sports activities.

  • Personal trainer apps/Yoga and meditation apps/Home Workout and exercise apps – Freeletics, Nike Training Club, Fitmo
  • Activity Tracking Apps – Runtastic, Runkeeper, Strava, NRC
  • Nutrition Apps – Lose It, myfitnesspal
  • Running Trackers – Couch to 5K, Runcoach, Human, Pacer
  • Cycling Apps – Strava, MyWindsock, Komoot
  • Yoga Trackers – Track Yoga, Asana, Glo, Rebel
  • Gym Trackers – Gym Workout Tracker, Strong, Fit Notes,

Introduction of Virtual Reality in Fitness

When you strap on your Oculus Quest 2 and immerse in VR Fitness games, you get a chance to get in shape, strengthen your core, improve your flexibility, build your muscles, burn calories, and improve cardiovascular fitness.

Implementation of virtual reality allows interactions with virtual objects in artificial made-up environments using headsets, controllers, wearables, microphones, and sensors. The revenue in the digital fitness and well-being segment is projected to reach US $17.7 billion in 2022. It will reach an annual growth CAGR 2022 – 2027 of 6.96%.

As an example, KIWI designs VR weight controller fitness accessories, adjustable weight controller work with all VR exercise game apps compatible with Quest 2 (Stock Controllers NOT included), with Protector Cover feature VR weight controller with immersive VR fitness. It performs better in VR fitness games such as FitXR, Supernatural, BOXVR, HOLOFIT, Synth Riders, OhShape, and others. It makes up for virtual training for High knee jacks, overhead reach, side deep squats, side lunge left, side bends, standing crunch, ventral lunge, butt kicks, curtsy lunge, shoulder circles, shoulder shrug, side bends, standing crunch, ventral lunge, torso twists, torso rotation and many more self-help exercises

More Examples of Fitness VR App  are Liteboxer VR, FitXR App, Supernatural App, OhShape App, Holofit App

More VR Fitness Apps to Try – Pistol Whip, Beat Saber,  Dance Central, and Thrill of the Fight.

How to create a VR Fitness App?

The first step to building a fitness app is to analyze the competitors and define your target audience. This will help in detecting gaps in market offerings and outline the target audience. To know more – conduct polls, document and analyze their remarks, modify the primary idea, test your assumptions, and select a segment of people who shows maximum interest.

  • Check and Finalize your unique value proposition
  • Discern the weakness of the competitive fitness apps
  • Check the needs of the early adopters.
  • Understand the fitness app monetization strategy.
  • Select a suitable tech stack
  • Choose the appropriate platform (Android, ios, hybrid, cross-platform)
  • Finalize the key features

While finalizing the strategy of employing the best business model for fitness app development, it is essential to take into account the key activities, key partners, value proposition, customer relations, customer segments, channels, cost structure, and revenue streams.

Moving ahead, the next step is to design and develop an appealing fitness app. To ensure complete success hire experienced developers in-house or outsource your requirements on a fixed price, or hourly basis. Of course, there are many more considerations when finding a reliable team that knows how to make an effective fitness app on a budget.

Spread an effective marketing campaign by announcing the app on social media (SMM marketing), using paid apps (Facebook, Google and YouTube), promoting on topical websites (blogs, news aggregators, and specialized resources), reaching out to industry influencers about potential collaborations, launching a landing page with benefits, employing content marketing with tips to stay fit and healthy.

How VR can be used for fitness?

VR-based exercises are not very different from other types of aerobic exercises. Did you know that your VR game can be a good workout – much like traditional yoga or boxing class? Pilates, kickboxing, cardio, sword fighting, or dodging lasers require you to work up a serious sweat to play the game. Simply pop on a VR headset, and load the right game (or the game of your choice); you could be sparring in a boxing ring or skiing in the Alps. It could be a mix of aerobic exercises that you really enjoy doing, but with painless minutes.

What benefits does VR bring to the fitness app?

VR offers a computer-simulated environment with some hardware (VR headset) that allows users to navigate and interact with the simulation. It couples software (a collection of games) to immerse yourself in virtual surroundings and control your movements or respond to a movement with a handheld controller.

VR fitness apps allow users to control their players or character by moving their bodies. You might be up on your feet hopping for several seconds or minutes as you jump over laser beams, do some squats, lunges, dips, burpees, jumps, stretches, or swings, as you ride a VR roller coaster, swinging your arms intensely as you use a sword to fight a monster.

VR Fitness App Features

  • Create Weekly Goals
  • Browse and Save Classes
  • Access to In-Depth Results
  • Monitor Progress
  • User Account registration and login
  • Wearables connectivity (Number of steps and distance covered, Heart rate, Calories burned, Type of exercises, and Duration and intensity of physical exercises)
  • Activity Tracking
  • Goal setting
  • Geolocation
  • Calorie counting
  • Notifications and reminders
  • Workouts
  • Educational content
  • Device connectivity
  • Integration with other apps
  • Personalized content
  • Meal plans and shopping lists
  • Customizable settings for a streamlined user experience
  • Virtual reality
  • Gamification
  • Social Media Features

Technology Stack

Frontend (Client-Side) – HTML 5, CSS3, JavaScript, Angular js, Vue.js – for web client
Kotlin – for Android client app
Swift – for iOS client app
Backend (Server Side) – Ruby (Ruby on Rails framework), Phoenix (elixir framework)
Python (Django, Flask), PHP (Lavarel, Codelgniter)

Plus,

  • Google Location API (Android)
  • Core Location (iOS)
  • Google Maps Android IP
  • MapKit (iOS)
  • Google Directions API
  • Google Places API
  • Twilio Communications
  • Google Cloud Messaging (Android)
  • Apple Push
  • FitBit Friends API
  • ELCIES Connected Services
  • Walgreens Balance Rewards
  • Stripe – PayPal SDK – Apple Pay

How can VR fitness Apps make money?

Applications can be paid, can have in-app advertisements, and can earn by promoting their brand. Completely free apps exist to advertise branded products. If you have a brand to develop, you can build a fitness app as a powerful tool to advertise it.

How much does it cost to build a VR Fitness App?

Such an app can have a basic version (1 platform), a medium version (1 platform), and a large app version (2 platforms). The cost to develop UX/UI design, custom development, quality assurance, project management, and business analysis varies in accordance to the resource utilization, availability of skilled top mobile app developers in India, the number of platforms, tools and technologies, and the scope of the project.

Conclusive

The final cost of a fitness app depends upon the level of the top mobile app development companies that you hire and the best practices used while making the fitness app. It should actually be an integration of real user testing procedures, sharing fitness tips, exercises, and plans, enabling voice control in the system via Google Assitant/Siri, and proper planning of fitness app prototype (user experience and appealing interface). Additionally, there are many vendors in the market, so the options are numerous. Adopt the one that fits into your budget and desired functionality.