I was sitting at the edge of a black hole. Below me (in the gravitational sense), material was being dragged off a small moon to swirl in a brilliant white arc around a central region of impenetrable darkness. Behind this terrifying visage, Saturn loomed with the indifference of 100 trillion cubic kilometres of gas.
What was a black hole doing so close to Saturn?
That wasn’t what I was asking.
I was wondering if I’d suddenly tumble past the event horizon to be sharply pulled into that infinite void of compressed everything.
Admittedly, I did not fear for my life. But I did rather fear for the tatami mats that my exercise bike was resting upon.
Just over one year ago, I’d visited “Fun & Body”: a mini-gym showroom for VR exercise equipment in Tokyo. I had tried the HOLOFIT VR package that allowed you to paddle your rowing machine through various immersive landscapes, from ancient Babylon to a steampunk mining colony in the rings of Saturn. I’d absolutely loved it. While watching television on exercise equipment is common in gyms, I’d never been able to concentrate on the program while moving my body in anything past the most non-cardio lacklustre attempt at motion. This meant I either become bored or there was exactly zero point in me being at the gym.
But HOLOFIT was different. There was no plot to follow, you were just completely immersed in great scenery. Towering sphinxes, idyllic beaches, distant worlds or even the Golden Gate Bridge (complete with escaped monkeys) kept me peddling around the next virtual corner without staring desperately at the clock. It was like exercise and escapism in one, with the added possibility of being eaten by a giant crocodile.
WHAT WAS NOT TO LIKE?
Video clip of my VR feed near the black hole. See? TERRIFYING. A video of my favourite Babylonian route is here.
The only problem was price. In late 2018, HOLOFIT was a big purchase for a home gym. You needed VR set such as the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, which required a powerful gaming PC to operate. You then needed a compatible rowing machine and the additional software purchase. Counting on my fingers as I prowled the park after my gym session suggested I was looking at a bill of several thousand dollars.
I considered it. That’s how much I liked it.
What I really needed was for one of the gyms in Tokyo to adopt VR fitness. While Fun & Body welcomed individuals, it was this commercial market that was the main target. Yet none of the gyms in Tokyo sprung on this idea. This was slightly surprising, as I would have thought Japan’s capital would have embraced such a high-tech option[*]. I desolately cruised the Fun & Body blog for news, but while a few other Japanese cities acquired a VR gym, Tokyo remained bare. After a few months, I gave up.
The Oculus Quest VR set.
And while I wasn’t watching, everything changed.
In the spring, both Vive and Oculus released powerful standalone VR headsets. Unlike previous VR options that did not require being tethered to a beefy PC, the Oculus Quest and the HTC Vive Focus Plus are headsets designed for gaming, not just the less GPU-intensive tasks such as video watching. With the Oculus Quest starting at $400, a VR platform became competitive with other gaming consoles.
This seems to have kickstarted home VR gym options where the technology was basically there, but the need had not been enough to push through the development. HOLOFIT made their software compatible with any exercise bike, in addition to rowing machines with FTMS Bluetooth. All that was needed for the bike was a bluetooth sensor that strapped onto the peddle and retailed for a modest price of €35. The software itself is compatible with a range of different tethered and standalone headsets and is subscription based, costing about €10 a month.
The cadence sensor on my exercise bike is attached to the peddle arm with an elastic strap.
Sometime around here, a similar company called VR Zoom returned to the personal market. VR Zoom had originally produced an exercise bike compatible with a VR headset, but had ceased production to work on an adaptor that could be used with any generic exercise bike. At the start of last year, this had petered out and the website had declared it was focussing on commercial gyms for the forceable future. However, the website now advertises a similar sensor to HOLOFIT, in addition to a small control pad that can be used to play their suite of VR fitness games.
Confronted with this flood of information (which I uncomfortably confess might have been triggered by a well-placed Facebook advert), I bought in. I purchased an Oculus Quest, a simple exercise bike and took out a HOLOFIT software subscription for considerably less than the thousands it would have cost me this time last year.
And… and… and…
IT IS AMAZING.
The HOLOFIT software detects that the cadence sensor belongs to a bike and flips the visuals so you’re now peddling down a flat street in ancient Babylon, rather than rowing the narrow canals. Similarly, your steampunk row-spaceship becomes an equally steampunk peddle-powered spaceship. The only error in the graphics I’ve spotted so far is that one of the Babylonian people seems to be dangling their legs through a solid path, whereas previously that would have been a more comfortable paddle. The resolution isn’t incredible for the scenery, but I’ve not found it gives me any problems (e.g. a headache) and the attention to detail means that I keep looking around me to spot touches I hadn’t seen on my last loop.
Due to not aligning myself properly when turning on the headset, I had an unexpected out-of-body experience. Disturbingly, this involved me losing my head (you’re usually looking down at your body). You can also see why I did not feel safe peddling around near a black hole.
(In case anyone is wondering, I did also buy the Oculus for games, but those details mess with this storyline mojo.)
Now there was just one problem left: that black hole.
It was the second time I’d done the steampunk space route. I’d tried it first at Fun & Body and now I was peddling through on my exercise bike. The issue was that the reason I like VR so much is because I feel very immersed. This is all well and good until something sudden happens, such as falling from a height, accelerated at high speed or … chucked into a black hole. Despite what my brain knows, my stomach does not believe death is not imminent. Or in dying with my last meal in place. If anything should happen fast, the tatami was toast.
I lost my space legs again and exited, returning for a heart slowing zip around Babylon. Then I went to the HOLOFIT community Facebook page and posted a question: what DOES happen by the black hole?
“You rescue an astronaut and peddle gently back to the colony!” — I was assured.
But can you really trust anyone who only wants to do exercise off-world?
——
[*] Either that, or it wouldn’t embrace modern gym equipment at all and you’d be handed a barrel to lift at the local community centre: this is a land of bimodal extremes.