We talk a lot about the business use cases of XR on this podcast, but any good business comes with a great fitness plan or exercise room. XR is no different, and VRdōjō founder Michael Eichenseer runs Alan through a few of the cardiovascular benefits to the technology.

And that's just the first six

minutes! Many other topics are touched on in this episode - virtual

writing spaces, remote assistance, spatial learning, his own XR

makerspace, and more.

Alan: Welcome to the show,

Michael, how are you doing? Pretty good. How are you? Fantastic.

Thank you so much for joining me on the show today. It's going to be

a really exciting one. Let's tell everybody at home. What is your

vision for virtual augmented reality? Was the best virtual reality or

a AR experience is what is the best thing that you have done? And

explain to the listeners why that is so.

Michael: For me, it's definitely

the fitness aspect of VR. As a gamer, I definitely enjoy the fact

that I can play a game, not be sitting the entire time, and

afterwards, I've burnt 500 calories, and feel really good about it

the next day. The research coming out in XR in reducing pain and

increasing motivation, to me, is fascinating.

Alan: There was a lot of medical

use cases coming up in pain reduction, using virtual reality for

pre-surgical -- and also perisurgical -- where you're wearing a

headset to distract you. I know one of the things that blows my mind

is, my daughter, she's 10 and she is terrified of needles. Like,

we're talking blood-curdling screams from the nurse's office. The

next time she goes, we're gonna use VR to try to distract her while

they take blood, because it's a stressful thing. And when somebody

goes into a surgery, being able to decrease their stress; it's hard

to measure the success outcomes, but at the same time, just being

able to calm them is something that I think VR does really naturally.

You talked about exercising in VR. Give us some examples of some of

the ways people are using VR to exercise.

Michael: The boxing games are

pretty popular, and I definitely have to mention Beat Saber. That's

probably the top one at the moment.

Alan: Basically, you have two

lightsabers in your hands, and you've got to swipe up and down, and

left and right, with your left and right hand, and dodge out of the

way of things. It is incredible.

Michael: It's dancing.

Alan: Dancing and disco, and

it's so good.

Michael: Yes, it's really good.

You kind of lose track of time. I think that's why it's good that

it's based on music; the song ends and you're like, "oh, back to

reality a little bit.".

Alan: Yeah, there's a guy who

was playing, he lost 45 pounds playing Beat Saber.

Michael: Yes. I've actually met

a 68-year-old retiree who logs into VR every morning at 5:00 a.m.,

just to warm up for the day.

Alan: That's incredible. What

does he play? What does he do?

Michael: Back when I met him, we

were playing a game called Smash Box Arena. It's a multiplayer game,

kind of dodgeball. It's defunct now, but there's a lot of other games

like that. I think Rec Room is probably the number one out there,

where you can hop in -- it's a free game -- and it's cross-platform

and you see people in there at all times of the day.

Alan: I've played paintball in

there. It was a lot of fun.

Michael: Yep. That's the game I

actually play competitively. That's kind of my workout every day.

Alan: I'm so terrible at it.

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