This post is part three of a series explaining how and why Exertia exists. Read here for part one and here for part two.

So: we have a big picture view of the problem, and we have a portrait of what that looks like in person. Now all that’s needed is to solve it. So let’s go!

Our ambitious plan for Exertia is to revolutionise how we relate to exercise. We want to be the first step towards building a future that fits us as people.

In this future, gaming and play will be central. We will learn through play, heal through play, maintain ourselves through play – just like every other animal species does now.

And in this future, exercise will be something implicit again. Not a tacked-on thing that we have to keep reminding ourselves to do. Not an obligation that feels like a chore because doing it goes against our basic hunter-gatherer natures. Just – fun.

Looking around us, there are numerous complaints which can be improved by regular exercise, both physical issues and, increasingly, mental health issues.

The trick to living a healthier lifestyle is to remove the obstacles that make it hard. Let’s take away the pressure to do it and instead make it a good time. Let’s not worry about other people and just do it for our own sake. Let’s use what drives us in other ways to help us stay healthy – whether that’s competitiveness, working on projects, the interest in a good story, solving mysteries, exploring new places or beating your own scores.

Let’s remove the external pressures, and the obstacles that stop us, and take back control. If we do that, exercise and a healthy lifestyle will be something that happens to us, rather than something we have to seek out to do.

The Joyride is the first example of gaming technology designed to bridge the psychological gap between where we are, as a species, and where we’ve come from.

Watch this space cause it’s going to be big.

If you want a chance to get on the Joyride, go to our main website www.exertia.co.uk and sign up now!

This post is part two of a series explaining how and why Exertia exists. Read here for part one.

I suppose I’ve never considered exercise as something I have to do but rather as something that happened to me – the happy side-effect of a busy lifestyle. I always hoped I’d stay young and fit and lean forever by running around doing whatever it is I have to do. And I maintain (despite candid remarks) that I do maintain an active lifestyle, whether it’s fulfilling the many roles I have or running round after family.

But, much to my frustration, it’s becoming apparent that a healthy lifestyle and sufficient exercise isn’t just going to take care of itself.

So what to do? Well, in my case, start a business!

I’m really not interested in the gym – and believe me I have tried, but the only thing that changed was my bank balance. And I love swimming, but I don’t like getting wet, and I love walking – but sometimes it’s hard to get away, and taking the time to walk to the bank isn’t always convenient when you’ve got calls to take. And I love yoga, but it’s all very well being told to relax, switch off your busy thoughts and imagine yourself as a leaf floating on the breeze, but sometimes my overactive brain needs distracting, not calming.

We all need to do more to exercise and stay healthy. I’m sure every magazine we read contains some trick or snippet of advice on how to be happier, healthier and more comfortable with ourselves. The irony is, we only sit and read these magazines when we’re in the doctors waiting room.

But the pressure to find time to exercise isn’t helpful – if anything, it makes us feel worse. We’re putting an expectation on ourselves and holding ourselves to a standard we can’t necessarily maintain. And that’s a vicious circle.

We need something that is convenient, at home, doesn’t care what you look like, is engaging and encouraging, satisfying and fun. That doesn’t make you feel guilty about taking time out and doesn’t make your time out feel like a chore.

I wonder what that could be.

If you also want exercise to be a joy and not a chore, go to www.exertia.co.uk and sign up now!

Why start a business? In this blog series we’ll explain some of the thinking and motivation behind Exertia, and why we think it’s so necessary. Let’s kick off with Tobias for part one of the series.

I’m a sci-fi geek interested in futurism. This makes me fun at parties, but only the right kind of parties.

But when I’m among likeminded people there’s a topic that keeps cropping up again and again: what are we humans going to become? What happens to us when we let robots take on all the real work?

There are a lot of ways it could go right, and a lot of ways it could go wrong, and one of the ways it could go wrong is this:

Technology was supposed to improve our lives, yet more and more it seems to be stealing them away. The path of least resistance, and the path we’ll follow by default if nothing gets in the way, is that technology gets better and better and we trade away more and more of ourselves in the process.

You can feel this already – we know that modern lifestyles aren’t making us happy. There might be lots of reasons for this but I think a major factor is that modern work doesn’t make us feel like people anymore. More time put in at the office does not translate to more of the things that the back of our brain values. Our bodies don’t understand money. They don’t understand forms. They want to be out there doing hunter-gather things. And even though our office jobs will leave us a lot better fed and protected than if we just walked out and killed and ate the nearest pigeon – our bodies don’t understand that.

We are not living in tune with how we’re supposed to live. But the thing about technology is we’re the ones making it – to some extent, we get to shape how it goes.

Why am I founding a business? Because we need the future to be made of stuff that’s shaped to fit the way our hunter-gather background made us. And if we want that to be waiting for us in the future, we have to start working on it now.

If you too want to live in tune with nature without leaving your PC, go to www.exertia.co.uk and sign up now!

Hello everyone! This is the momentous occasion of our first ever development update.

We’ve been busier with the doing than with the blogging-about-doing, but we’ve finally got around to it now. Which does mean that right now you’re reading about things that actually happened a few months ago.

I wanted to write this post anyway, even if it’s late. This was the moment where, after a lot of work, we went from nothing to something, and I think that’s a step worth celebrating.

More precisely, we have gone from our old “functional” prototype – which merely let us prove the principle and develop some software – to a proper, “official” prototype that looks and feels like the final thing.

And, most importantly, we’ve had a chance to put it in front of real people and see how they respond. And their enthusiasm has been overwhelming!

Feedback

We got one piece of feedback immediately: the seat is too high for short people! Fortunately, that’s no problem at all to fix in the next iteration.

Everyone was grateful for the airflow fan. A bit of luck really, since it was something of a spur-of-the-moment addition to the design.

One thing we have noticed is that playing games is more intuitive on the Joyride. In a lot of sit-down games, a newbie can find themselves totally at sea with the controls. That’s not the case here – people just climb on and off they go.

Quite a lot of people thought our awesome point-of-sale – done in the style of an old arcade cabinet, made with the help of celebrated furniture manufacturer Jali Ltd, and assembled at 3am the night before the demo – was part of our product. No, it’s ours. Get your own.

Next Steps

Our next priority is software. We want to make sure there’s a wealth of games, apps and programs available right out of the box. More on that soon!

At the same time, I want to make a few little fixes to the design, and then we’re ready to start value engineering and planning for manufacture. This is where the fun begins.

First!