Meta acquires makers of virtual reality fitness app 'Supernatural'
Facebook Meta recently acquired Supernatural—one of the first fitness-centric subscription-based apps to become available on the Oculus Quest.
The app connects with Apple Watches to provide the user with real-time heart rate tracking and fitness tracking just like Apple Fitness Plus.
Could Meta help you transition from a couch potato Facebook feed scroller to an active fitness buff? Read on to find out.
Meta merged Oculus, Within with Facebook Reality Labs
Meta has acquired Within, the creator of Supernatural, which is an immersive virtual reality (VR) workout app for Oculus Quest headsets. Meta integrated Oculus and Within into its hardware division called Reality Labs. Previously, a Within representative told Engadget that Supernatural was "part Beat Saber, part Dance Dance Revolution, part Guitar Hero with your whole body."
Within core team continues to serve company, access more resources
In an announcement, Within CEO Chris Milk and Head of Fitness Leanne Pedante said that Supernatural's coaches, choreographers, and managers will continue to be a part of the team even after the Meta acquisition. The announcement said the acquisition gives Within's team access to more resources, music, creative ways to work out, features, and social experiences for VR.
Meta is excited to encourage third-party VR apps
In a statement about the acquisition, Meta's VP of Play Jason Rubin said, "Together we will also explore ways we can enhance future hardware to support VR fitness apps, encouraging other developers to bring new fitness experiences to VR." "We believe fitness will be a massive success in VR where multiple third-party fitness apps can succeed," he added, indicating the metaverse's general direction.
Metaverse could be fitness centric, but we aren't the happiest
Meta has its own fitness tracking app for Oculus Quest called the Oculus Move. However, we believe the company plans to make the metaverse app ecosystem more open to third-party products, possibly with a Meta smartwatch and fitness tracking services like Supernatural. That said, we are a bit queasy about handing our fitness data to Meta, be it through the Milan smartwatch or Supernatural.
