From VR to Health-tracking, Facebook Could Define the Future of Fitness

Facebook continues to focus on VR fitness.

According to Bloomberg, the social media giant is exploring the idea of syncing workout data from its Oculus virtual reality headsets with Apple’s Health app.

While there’s no guarantee this partnership comes to fruition, it does signal Facebook’s ongoing interest in virtual reality workouts and health more broadly.

• Early this year, Oculus launched a fitness-focused ad campaign.
• In June, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said VR is the future of fitness.
• Facebook is set to debut its first health-tracking smartwatch in summer 2022.

A whole new world. Facebook recently announced it was forming a new division within the company to bring the metaverse to life.

The Metaverse is a kind of virtual shared space where physical, augmented, and virtual reality collide. According to Zuckerberg, Facebook will transition from “being a social media company to being a metaverse company.”

Why it’s interesting: As we explained in Issue No. 90, The Metaverse of Fitness, the future of digital workouts looks more like Fortnite than Peloton.

In the year since publishing that article, a growing number of gaming-inspired fitness companies, from Zwift and Ergatta to FitXR and Supernatural, have gained traction. Now, even Peloton is getting into gaming.

Punchline: More and more, fitness and gaming are converging. And Facebook could play a key role in shaping the evolution of Fitness 3.0.