Immersive home-fitness solution using muscle-based haptic wearables

Valkyrie Industries正在开发一种新的沉浸式家庭健身解决方案，使用基于肌肉的触觉可穿戴设备。通过利用我们在电肌肉刺激(EMS)方面的专利和在虚拟现实(VR)内容创作方面的经验，我们将提供一个系统，将高效、个性化和引人入胜的健身程序带到人们的家中。设计基金会拨款将使我们能够进行深入的客户研究，包括以人为中心的低成本原型体验设计，与利益相关者的参与，以及用户体验和商业可行性研究。该项目属于跨行业沉浸式设计项目，将沉浸式技术、触觉和VR游戏应用于健身和健康。Valkyrie Industries在与重工业合作伙伴合作后，现在正将注意力集中在健身市场。我们的专利技术通过在VR中应用EMS来实现肌肉的重量和阻力感觉。最近，VR成为家庭健身的热门目的地，Beat Saber和FitXR等游戏的收入达到数千万美元。此外，斯伦德通或SixPad等EMS设备已被专业和业余运动员广泛使用，近年来重新引起了人们的兴趣。我们将基于我们在VR和触觉方面的经验，将EMS在肌肉训练和恢复方面的效率与游戏化的VR例程结合起来。设计基础基金将使我们能够了解健身用户的动机，测试我们的市场和验证假设，创造各种简单的原型，并与客户一起测试它们。我们将使用双钻石设计过程来接近使用VR和触觉健身的想法。我们将：发现：与健身教练和健身房常客一起举办研讨会，了解他们对室内健身房体验的偏好。我们将了解不同的训练方案，如何训练不同的肌肉群等。定义哪些练习可以潜在地移植到VR耳机上。根据利益相关者的采访，我们将制定产品要求、软硬件系统的特点、系统的社交方面等。使用我们专有的可穿戴触觉技术开发简单的沉浸式游戏原型，并将其应用于不同的肌肉群。我们将创造2-4种不同的简单体验交付人员：与我们在Here East的焦点小组和利益相关者一起测试这些原型，以衡量我们技术的效率和参与度。到项目结束时，我们将了解我们应该在进一步的研发中采取哪个方向，以使产品更接近市场。

Valkyrie Industries is developing a new immersive home-fitness solution using muscle-based haptic wearables. By exploiting our patent in electro-musclular stimulation (EMS) and experience in virtual reality (VR) content creation, we will deliver a system that brings efficient, personalised and engaging fitness routines to people's homes. The design foundations grant will allow us to carry out in-depth customer research, including a human-centered design of low-cost prototype experiences, engagement with stakeholders, and both user-experience and commercial feasibility research. This project falls under the Design for Cross Sector Immersive Projects, applying immersive technologies, haptics and VR gaming, to fitness and healthcare.Valkyrie Industries, after working with heavy-industry partners, is now focusing its attention on the fitness market. Our patented technology allows sensations of weight and resistance in muscles by applying EMS in VR. Recently, VR became a popular destination for home fitness, with games such as Beat Saber and FitXR reaching revenues in the tens of millions of dollars. Additionally, EMS devices such as Slendertone or Sixpad have been extensively used by both professional and amateur athletes, with a renewed interest growing in recent years. We will combine the efficiency of EMS for muscle training and recovery with gamified VR routines, building upon our experience in VR and haptics.The design foundations grant will allow us to understand the motivations of the fitness users, test our market and validate hypotheses, create various simple prototypes and test them with customers. We will use the double-diamond design process to approach the idea of using VR and haptics for fitness. We will:Discover: run workshops with fitness instructors and gym-goers to understand their preferences for the in-house gym experiences. We will understand different training regimes, how different muscle groups are trained etc.Define which exercises can be potentially ported to VR headsets. Based on the stakeholders' interviews, we will formulate the product requirements, the features of the software and hardware systems, the social aspect of the system etc.Develop simple immersive game prototypes using our proprietary wearable haptic technology, and apply it to different muscle groups. We will create 2-4 different simple experiencesDeliver: test those prototypes with our focus groups and stakeholders at Here East, gauging the efficiency and engagement of our technology. By the end of the project, we will understand which direction we should take in our further R&D to bring the product closer to market.