Race Yourself – The Killer Fitness App For Google Glass?

Considering that the Google Glass project is approaching its due date, and the official release date could arrive anytime now, enthusiasts have switched their interest over the device’s most awesome future apps.  We won’t state the obvious features, such as points of interest, navigation and hands-free usage as these have already been overly discussed so far. However, exercise and tracking apps are a whole different thing. Already working on this idea, we have the Race Yourself Company from London who is prepared to invest £100,000 into a fitness application for Google Glass, developed on the CrowdCube platform.

So, the next fitness app for the Glass will work on the same motivational principle as the RunKeeper or Nike’s Fuel Band. The app will take a regular fitness exercise and turn it into a game for you, by using augmented reality events compatible with the Glass device. It would be like you would be actually racing, but instead of a different opponent, you can set your competition to be either your personal best, either an average of a certain period recorded previously in the GlassFit history, or why not, one of your friends.

The app applies the same principle to cycling and you could see while on the bike, every traffic light or the acceleration timing. The London based company is planning to develop a few hundred mini-games for the app. They even work to develop an exercise in which angry augmented reality zombies are chasing you. How’ that for a motivational exercise?

Alex Foster, the co-founder of Race Yourself explains that the logic behind the app is quite simple actually. While you don’t like exercising, you are highly enthusiast to play a game. So, how could they make exercising as addictive and enjoyable as a videogame? Through an augmented reality fitness app, of course. And since the Glass will soon be launched, the two projects fit perfectly. So, by using this app, the user can enjoy a realistic experience, join a race, be followed and escape zombies, establish new limits and the list can continue. Nevertheless, running would receive a whole new meaning.

More than that, the app will use different Glass sensors so that it could be paused by tapping it, or to give you exercise ideas. As a plus, the UK version will allegedly have an injury mode, which could tell you if you are in the situation of getting hurt, or develop exercises accustomed to your physical condition, for instance it could add to your program more stretches, both static and dynamic, less running and so on. It can also be aware if you are suffered an injury to a specific part of your body, so that it would exercise less the that injured part.

Foster also mentions that the app offers more than a hundred games and upgrade features so that the experience could be as vivid as possible.  The strategy of the app is similar to that of regular games, so an user would be getting points for beating personal bests, building streaks and from losing calories. Further, he can use the points to unlock new levels or games in the app. Of course that a good feature will be harder to unlock and if you want a shortcut for it, you will have to pay and this is how the company will make profit from the GlassFit app. Besides these shortcuts, they will be also selling speedometers and heart rate monitors. Another thing you should know is that the app is inspired by games such as League of Legends or Clash of Clans.

We believe that the GlassFit app will be launched during the same time the Glass device will emerge on the market. However, the guys from Race Yourself are planning to make a pre-sale campaign starting next month or maybe earlier if everything goes well. Even though this doesn’t look like a good idea for now, considering that the Glass is not out yet and its market isn’t that wide at the moment, everything depends on how well this campaign will be executed.