Keeping yourself fit or losing weight can be much of a hassle. Using treadmills can also be monotonous and boring but with exercise-friendly gadgets, you may just have enjoyable and effective fitness routines.
A new company is banking on the hardware plus game idea to make exercise easier for people who work out on exercise bikes, treadmills and cross-trainers. Blue Goji, which was started by the people behind Guitar Hero, Charles and Kai Huang, is giving a shot at playing video games for fitness.
"We started Blue Goji really with the idea of trying to help people lead healthier lives. Our experience with Guitar Hero taught us that games can be very engaging, fun and immersive, and also inspire people to be more active," Kai Huang said.
The company launched its first product on Thursday, the Goji Play, a set of video game peripherals and accessories that allows users to play games while on a treadmill or a bike.
Goji Play costs $99.99 and includes a pair of two-button controllers that users can strap onto the handles of their exercise equipment and an activity tracker. Each of these communicates wirelessly to a linked iOS device using Bluetooth.
When you start to move, the activity tracker can sense your motion and sends this data as gameplay inputs to the game on your device. The exercise friendly controllers works with iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches that at least run on iOS 6.1 or later. Depending on the game, motion data can be converted into speed in racing games such as Spin or Die and Super Moto X or as punching strength in the boxing game Fisticuffs.
According to Huang, the concept is that people will be distracted by the game so they work out either longer or harder than they normally would. Although he did not have any research to back up this claim, Huang said that 30 percent of the early testers of Goji Play said they worked out longer than they had realized.
"Our goal is to give you an immersive experience and make you forget you are exercising, to make 30 minutes feel like five," he said.
