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Xbox Fitness, a new online service built for Xbox One will launch for the console this holiday, Microsoft has announced.
The service takes the world’s most popular fitness videos and makes them interactive. The library of videos includes Beachbody’s P90X (Tony Horton) and INSANITY (Shaun T), Jillian Michaels, Tracy Anderson and others, and will be available for free with Xbox Live Gold memberships through December 2014.
Thanks to Kinect, Xbox Fitness claims to be able to read your heart rate without a monitor, see which muscles are most engaged by measuring the power, force and transfer of weight in your body, and track the quality of your performance by measuring your balance, tempo and form.
The app will offer personalised program recommendations based on your workout history and past performance, highlight the most popular workouts among Xbox Fitness users, and offer workouts ranging from 10 to 60 minutes in length.
INSANITY’s Shaun T commented: “What makes Xbox Fitness so innovative is the feedback it gives you. The Kinect sensor can evaluate your form, tell how high you’re jumping, how hard you’re punching and even read your heart rate. It’s that little missing piece of validation that hasn’t been possible for home fitness products before. Xbox Fitness completes the puzzle.”
Xbox Fitness will also push you to work harder and stay motivated by integrating challenges into workouts, tracking your performance history and awards and delivering competitive social challenges.
An Xbox Fitness Pass will be included with Xbox Live Gold membership through December 2014, offering unlimited access to workouts. Starting January 2015, unlimited access requires a paid Xbox Fitness Pass subscription and an Xbox Live Gold membership. Additional Xbox Fitness will also be available to purchase.
This could be a major selling point for Xbox One as Microsoft looks to market the console beyond the gamer.
The technology behind Xbox Fitness is also pretty amazing, with Microsoft stating that it detects micro-fluctuations in your skin optically to read your heart rate, absolutely touch free, from up to 10 feet away. That’s like something from the future.
Source: Xbox Wire
