The fitness game start-up riding the at-home workout trend during Covid-19 pandemic
- The maker of a basketball training app used by the NBA introduces Active Arcade, an exercise gaming app made for regular users
- The coronavirus pandemic has driven demand for toys and game consoles that let users burn calories at home in a fun way
A start-up with roots in Hong Kong and San Jose, California is betting on the growing popularity of motion-based workout experiences with a new fitness app, as people increasingly turn towards virtual offerings to keep fit during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Active Arcade, which uses the smartphone’s front-facing camera for motion sensing, had drawn a million users within three months of its launch in July, according to Alex Wu, vice-president of the app’s maker Nex.
The app contains 13 mini games where users play whack-a-mole, punch targets and dodge laser beams by moving their bodies. While similar exercise games have been offered on Nintendo’s Switch and Wii, as well as Microsoft’s discontinued Kinect, bringing the immersive workout experience to smartphones makes it more accessible to people without gaming consoles, Wu said. The app has been growing rapidly in Asian countries including China, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, he added.
Founded by a team of ex-Apple engineers in 2017, Nex launched its first app Homecourt in 2018. Using a computer vision system, it helps basketball players improve their shots by tracking and analysing movements based on metrics such as leg angle, speed and release time.
The idea for Active Arcade came during the pandemic, when the team noticed a change in how people used Homecourt, particularly in Asia.
“They were downloading Homecourt, going through all the basketball stuff just to play these little non-basketball games in there,” Wu said. “We realised that there is an appetite just for that.”
