Alo Moves , the wellness and fitness platform by the yoga athleisure line Alo, is developing a new mixed-reality app for Meta Quest 3 . I got to see how it works it in Alo's store in Manhattan, and it gave me a taste of how virtual reality can sometimes give real-life wellness practices more dimension. Launching later this year, with beta testing beginning mid-June, the app is being developed by Magnopus , a technology studio started by Oscar-winning visual artists.
It offers your choice of Pilates, yoga or meditation practice inside an immersive world, beaming 3D versions of real-life Alo Yoga instructors onto a virtual background. The effect is created using room mapping and volumetric capture technology. The magic of the mixed-reality app is this: You follow the instructor's movements as closely you would in the front row of a yoga or Pilates class, but you're wearing a VR headset instead.
There are two additional "mini" instructors you can literally pick up and move around you, so you can follow along with them from every angle. This is all set against a virtual background, allowing you to move in mixed reality with your real-fake instructor(s). One of the meditation modes on the app.
Getting started with the Alo Moves app The heavy feel of a VR headset on my face felt like the exact opposite of what I'm typically going for when I set out to do yoga, Pilates or any sort of stress-relieving, breath-focused workout. But I quickly got over it when I saw how cool this mixed-r.
