Playpulse ONE – The gaming bike that unlocks your fitness motivation | Hacker News Reader

Playpulse ONE – The gaming bike that unlocks your fitness motivation

playpulse.com

27 pointspunnerud45 comments

There was an old late-90s adventure game called "The Longest Journey", set in a near-future, and at one point the main character laments how seemingly everything has a screen attached to it now.

She was a bit over 20 years early with her prediction. But by god it is true and I fucking hate it.

Screens are everywhere they don't belong now.... gas station pumps, on the subway, in our cars, even on our fitness equipment.

Is this really "innovation", or is this just a bunch wantrepreneurs looking to cash out on a sweet exit in a few years time?

Like are people really so weak as to not be able to be alone with their thoughts for an hour while they ride a fitness bike? A pumped-up playlist on Spotify (gag) isn't enough?

At this rate society is going to be those fatasses on Wall-E, fitness bikes be damned

"But with a screen attached" is becoming the new "but do it on a computer!"

This is a very thoughtful comment and you are correct about the screens and the wantrepreneurs.

But, for some people, using an indoor bike is the only way that they can safely cycle. This includes people like me, who have multiple health conditions that make traditional cycling unsafe.

Also, there are some people who want to cycle while simultaneously working from home, which is totally possible. That is why a lot of people have such setups. A lot of people who are endurance athletes are from the socioeconomic bracket that allows them to work from home.

What kind of WFH are you able to do from a fitness-bike-mounted screen? At the very least you are missing important peripherals?

I find it really hard to operate a touchscreen with any dexterity whilst running on an elliptical. Sure the bike itself had really big buttons on the UI, but when I brought in my ipad to play some XCOM, one encounter (usually 10-15 minutes) would take nearly the entire hour I would ride due to butterfingering everything. I can't imagine trying to do anything productive on such a setup.

A colleague of mine has an Xbox stationed in front of his stationary bike. A large majority of his gaming time is spent while exercising.

I work part-time and I am also an electrical engineering graduate student. I often watch lectures while exercising, for example, and simultaneously take notes.

I use two methods for coding/typing/notes: voice and specialized keyboard. I generally use a specialized braille keyboard, that I can sweat on, however I do wear gloves (see: https://www.atguys.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_inf...).

I know multiple braille codes backwards and forwards, and I generally use a standard 8-key braille keyboard to type English language, computer code, and math. I have a print-related disability, that does not affect visual acuity, but does affect my ability to read (severe convergence insufficiency). So, when working and exercising, I use text to speech feedback when typing with braille code.

For coding with voice I use Dragon Naturally Speaking and VoiceCode (https://www.voicecode.io/). For math and voice I use Mathfly (https://mathfly.org/).

And for the rest of the stuff, it requires a sketchy app on your phone to use it.

It's been done before, a few times:

https://expresso.com/ https://www.virzoom.com/

Expresso is more commercially-oriented, but iirc they lost high eight figures starting back in the 2000s. Virzoom only burned something like seven figures so far, working against the added drag of VR adoption.

And then there's Zwift (https://www.zwift.com/), which doesn't carry the hardware costs and was recently valued at ~$1 bn+.

If I'm playing armchair CEO, it seems like you do better off by leveraging the existing hardware ecosystem and just building a content / network play. Better to gift Apple / Google 30% than try to build, launch, and support hardware.

Also, it's really hard to get enough users to support a fun enough game library; the overhead of custom content development is way, way too high unless you've got, I dunno, tens of millions of users? Everyone's thinking of Peloton, but they adopted the highly successful spin class model to the home. The change in behavior was staying home rather than going to the gym, not starting exercise instead of playing video games. And full disclosure, yes: I was skeptical of Peloton before they launched, too.

https://expresso.com - Virtual biking

https://www.virzoom.com - VR biking

https://www.zwift.com - Interactive screen for real bike

Playpulse - Exercise while gaming? A new twist for me.

> Playpulse - Exercise while gaming? A new twist for me.

Do you have an Oculus or Vive? There's like a zillion "exercise while gaming" apps/games.

Missed the Nintendo Ring Fit Adventure, did you? I wish I could call it insight, but it was just blind luck and timing that I got a Switch and Ring Fit before Covid hit. I have to say, for something that I thought would a lockdown gadget purchase I'd regret later, I'm still using it. And I don't need my exercise gamified, I've been a distance runner since before the first Sony Walkman. But it is a surprising amount of fun, and impressively done with a variety of options. And, runner or couch potato, it can be a decent workout. The Apple Watch says it burns a reasonable amount of calories for time spent.

But anyway, back to the point, Ring Fit is just the Switch version of Wii Fit (for loose definitions of...), so it's not a new thing.

Pretty fair take. I think their marketing line of "It's more fun than Fortnite!" is like.. way off the mark. There's no overlap of the the Venn diagram of Fornite players and the market for this bike.

Those three are "bike simulators". The thing about a device that simulates being on a bike, cycling through the outdoors, is that anyone who remotely has any interest in that can buy a bike and go cycling through the outdoors.

If playpulse does this right, then the goal is to engage the mind in playing games, and have the mind engage the body in achieving results. Disclosure: I was involved with the Exertris bike [1].

A quarterback's mind isn't thinking about doing a tricep extension, they are thinking about throwing the ball to a receiver. A receiver isn't thinking about doing a 100 yard sprint, they are thinking about avoiding getting tackled and scoring. Likewise, when we engage the mind in games where pedaling affects the game, e.g you go faster, or your weapons charge faster, then people workout harder and longer because their brain is playing the game, not thinking about pushing pedals.

Even Peloton is just being shouted at to push pedals harder: keeping the mind utterly aware of doing the thing that sucks. Playpulse is having someone capture your flag, and you chasing after them.

The market is people who know they should do cardio, but hate it. I was actually talking about this very subject with my Physio today, saying how I wished I had one of our old bikes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exertris

The person who makes an under-the-desk computer gaming peripheral for games and video (imagine watching or listening to a show but if you stop pedaling, it stops playing) and sells it for $3-400 is gonna make a killing.

Make the bike generate power to run the pi or whatever.

Why is it that on a 1.2k bike there was no budget for a more comfortable bike seat. It'd also be nice if the device was less insanely vertical looking.

Almost all these bikes allow you to change out the seat with any other. Some people have real specific seat preferences. I’d be more concerned if you can’t move the seat closer/further from the bars.

The verticality is coming from a very small footprint, which seems like a big win for most people.

I'm pretty sure I see a hint of seat rail in some of those pictures, so it should be swappable. Plus, I just don't see any advantage to using non-commodity parts for the seat, unless they hope to screw you for the $200 "comfort saddle".

In the premium bike market the seat is a throwaway item - it's just there because selling a bike with no seat would be weird, everybody buying one will replace it with their preferred seat.

What I think most of the comments here are missing is that the hardware/software integration is this product's USP. Of course, anyone can mount an iPad on a stationary bike and play a game – that's a solved problem.

What Playpulse seems to be doing here is integrating the entertainment and the exercise, to the point where your pedal speed affects variables in-game, and in-game feedback changes your pedal resistance. Personally, I'm happy to just watch YouTube while working out, but I can see how gamifying your spin session could make it more engaging.

Prop Cycle hit the arcades in 1996 and mastered hardware/software integration for this concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prop_Cycle

I never understood why it didn't have other software releases for the platform.

There is even a better setup than PlayPulse One: a smart trainer [1][2] using a traditional bike with VZfit [3]. You get to train using a VR headset, like the Oculus Quest 2 while riding your own bike inside your house, via a smart trainer!

Alternatively, you can have the smart trainer using a traditional bike, connected to a TV (using Apple TV or Android TV [Nvidia Shield TV Pro recommended]) or a laptop (at your cycling desk) to something like Zwift [4], which does just about the same as PlayPulse One. But, if you choose the TV setup then can use the laptop at your cycling desk [5] for work while on Zwift. You can even add a smart cycling fans [6] to your cycling desk!

This setup, is certainly the most versatile basic setup, and is a win, in my opinion.

[1] Tacx Indoor Bike Trainers: https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/c16483-p1.html?FILTER_FEATUR...

[2] Wahoo Kickr Smart Trainers: https://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/bike-trainers

[3] VZFit VR Bicycling Training : https://www.virzoom.com/

[4] Zwift Indoor Bicycling Training: https://www.zwift.com/

[5] Wahoo Kickr Indoor Cycling Desk: https://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/accessories/wahoo-fitne...

[6] Wahoo Kickr Headwind Bluetooth Fan: https://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/accessories/kickr-headw...

This Hackernews comment is up there with the classic Dropbox comment[0].

You just listed two setups of 3+ connected devices that need to be configured to work together and possibly wired together. Compared to a single plug-and-play object.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Thanks but this requires minimal setup and offers the most versatility. It does not require the technical expertise of setting up your own personal cloud storage.

If you think that Playpulse ONE is some disruptive technology then you are likely wrong. First, it sounds similar to McDonald's Play Place, you know, the plastic tunnels for kids at the fast food restaurant that are dirty as can be.

Also, the socioeconomic bracket who participates in endurance sports is typically upper middle class. The ability to work while exercising is of utmost importance. There is no setup that offers both play and work opportunities, like the one I mentioned.

Working out with a VR headset sounds like a sweatfest

Yep. There are a lot of exercise apps for the Oculus Quest 1|2. People sweat in them all the time, and they are OK with the possibility of breaking them. You can buy protective barriers to add a layer between the headset. However, the humidity will probably eventually ruin the headset.

If someone can just create a wall-power breaker that turns off when I'm not walking, running, or biking then I'd be fine. I don't need dedicated games that trick me into exercising, I need non-exercise to block my ability to play the games I want.

So that was a thing, and it sucked. Negative reinforcement just doesn't work too well on humans. "Keep pedaling or we'll disable the controller" was a thing, and people hated it. "Keep pedaling or we'll disable the controller", is hostility easily met with, "Oh, look, I plugged my controller back into my playstation and threw this shitty device in the trash"

What they ought to do is just sell the bike as a controller/screen combo. That way you could hook up an Xbox/PS5/Switch/PC/Raspberry Pi/Steam Machine/whatever and have an actual shot at having any fun on it.

yeah, I was hoping this would be basically a home video receiver with built in monitor and streaming apps, and with a nice set of hookups for real devices.

Instead it's a sub to a really janky looking gaming service, a very small handful of streaming apps, and a very expensive spot in the garage next to the FitDesk I also never use (but which would, with small mods, probably be better for this purpose than this).

I don't think this would really work for what they are trying to do. If this works, it will be through tight integration of the exercise and games. I'm not optimistic, but I definitely think that's their only viable bet.

It feels like this would be the perfect application for something like Geforce Now or even just the Steam streaming service. Provide an interface for users to customize the controls and provide an API for advanced users. You could probably coast on people being creative with the games they want to play by pedaling an indoor bicycle and become a cult hit by being accessible and ... cheap? (I have no idea how much these things usually cost)

I think there's a real issue with any sort of bike desk/gaming setup which is that it's hard to interact with a stable system while biking so the interface necessarily needs to be tuned to cruder inputs. Biking is mostly a leg activity but the rest of the body does get involved and ends up making using something like a mouse or keyboard require a lot of work to provide a stable platform.

Bikes as display devices with crude inputs feels like the maximum we can get for a consumer device.

I think the idea for these tends to be more like having the little cycle thing under your desk. You don't use them to exercise at full tilt or pull sprints, more like you spend an hour or two doing whatever while keeping your legs moving on something with just enough resistance to maybe matter.

I briefly used a FitDesk (which is an exercise cycle with a lap-desk-quality platform rather than handlebars) and the cycling motions really weren't an issue for typing. But they did make the monitor bounce a lot. That was way more of a problem.

I really just want a spin bike that connects natively to Apple Fitness+ or Zwift without having to overpay for a peloton. Why doesn’t this exist?!

It does exist. Or at least it should. We bought a treadmill that connects to Zwift, and it does so seamlessly without any of the usual Bluetooth bullshit (Horizon Fitness, if anyone cares). A quick glance says their bike should work just as well:

https://www.horizonfitness.com/ic79-indoor-cycle

Zwift used to have a list of compatible treadmills, and I assume the same for bikes. I'd go poke around on their site for that list.

Apple Fitness+, OTOH, is more of a trick. I think the machine needs to connect to the Apple Watch with GymKit. Yeah, good luck finding something and even better luck finding something for less than ten grand (US$). Apple's either going to have to come up with some dead-simple API, or companies are going to have to catch up to Fitness+. But as of six months ago, I couldn't find anything at a reasonable price (or much at all, really).

Thank you! I'll take a closer look at Horizon. I came across them several months ago but it seemed their treadmills were all out of stock and from the forums I read, when they came back in stock they were bought up quite quickly.

When we bought our treadmill, everything was out of stock. We waited a month or two for ours. You couldn't even buy a set of dumbbells unless you wanted to pay scalper prices. But it's been a year now, perhaps everyone that wanted a home exercise machine has one now. :-)

Why is VR and stationary bikes not a big thing right now? Those two things seem like a perfect match.

As an avid https://www.holodia.com/ user, I believe fitness is VR’s killer app.

For those pointing out all the "virtual cycling" experiences that already exist, or the "gaming on a PS5 while using an exercise bike", both of those massively miss the mark in effectiveness.

The goal of Playpulse is to engage the brain in games, and have the brain engage the body in achieving a result. A quarterback's mind isn't thinking about doing a tricep extension, they are thinking about throwing the ball to a receiver. A receiver isn't thinking about doing a 100 yard sprint, they are thinking about avoiding getting tackled and scoring. Likewise, when we engage the mind in games where pedaling affects the game, e.g you go faster, or your weapons charge faster, then people workout harder and longer because their brain is playing the game, not thinking about pushing pedals.

Virtual cycling misses the mark because cycling is not fun. Most people who would be interested in getting on a bike and cycling through the outdoors, and who could afford to drop $1999, have both a car, and a bike, and spend the weekends cycling through the outdoors. For everyone else, it's just not fun. Seeing some images of trees, that move slowly (terribly slowly) as you pedal along a highway, is just not motivating at all.

Peloton is just being shouted at to pedal harder. Your brain is more focused on the pedaling harder aspect, but at least some of us respond to being shouted at.

Playing on a PS5 or Switch is fun, but it doesn't engage the brain-body connection to co-opt the body into exercising. I am currently playing through Hades, limiting my time to only when I am on my recumbent bike, and honestly it is harder and sometimes I just stop pedaling.

All the suggestions for a device that interrupts your game if you stop pedaling, don't survive play testing. They've been done. Simplest was a device that plugged in between your controller and the console, and disabled the controller if you stopped pedaling. They suck. Humans don't respond well to negative reinforcement. "Keep pedaling or we'll ruin your game" is met by "Oh, look, I unplugged you and threw you in the trash".

It's not just about playing games. It's about engaging the brain in the game, and providing a physical mechanism (the pedals), and in game mechanics, that require the brain to engage the motor cortex and the legs, but without thinking about it.

I wish them good luck. My only concern is posture. I'm 190cm and not sure that this will be able to adjust to keep my posture correct.

I worked on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exertris

This makes me want a programming unicycle. Are those a thing?

No, but there was that guy in the 80s who was riding a recumbent bike around the country while doing programming with all sorts of custom interface hardware. Cant remember his name, but he blogged pretty extensively about it.

https://microship.com/BEHEMOTH/

Fifteen Million Merits is here!

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