Google Glass Release Date, Specs, Price, Review Update: Glass Fit’s £100K Crowdfunding Success Hints That Killer Apps For AR Lens Are Fitness, Health & Wellness Related

Google Glass release date, specs, price and review: The wearable device by Google is still being finalized for a consumer release, but developers are already on the move to create apps for the upcoming AR lens. In a recent report, it said that the tech giant has actually begun inviting developers to its Mountain View campus, requiring them to sign non-disclosure agreements.

In what could be a hint on which apps will make it big in the Glass app marketplace, the recent crowdfunding success of an up and coming up app called GlassFit show that fitness, health and wellness-related applications might make a killing.

A London-based tech start-up has successfully crowdfunded their way to create the said Glass app. According to Techcrunch.com, London-based Race Yourself has received over £100,000 in seed funding on the equity-crowdfunding platform CrowdCube to help launch its fitness app for Glass.

The idea behind Glass Fit is to gamify running or other exercise types by using augmented kinds of reality experiences. Wearable gadgets like the Nike Fuel and RunKeeper Band was the inspiration for the concept. Glass Fit makes it possible to race live against your previous all time “personal best” or anytime in your GlassFit history.

Race Yourself plans to launch with GlassFit’s hundreds of mini games. The idea is the same with cycling where there is a need to take into consideration the horrible traffic lights or acceleration period. To make it more fun, a simulated race is available where the user is being chased by numerous zombies.

According to Alex Foster, co-founder of Race Yourself, “Exercise is incredibly good for you. Gaming is incredibly addictive and enjoyable. Our goal is make exercise incredibly addictive and enjoyable through augmented reality exercise experiences on, primarily, Google Glass,” adding “We are offering similar promises; more motivation, tracking, competition… but visually and live, that is, the user knows if they are beating or falling behind their personal best or target pace the whole way through the run.”

The app will feature tap to pause or “touch your toes” through using Glass’ other sensors. You will be deemed as if you have an injury or the like since it says it’s developed an “injury mode” in the UK start up, so basically doing more dynamic or static stretches can be expected whenever necessary.

“We offer over a hundred games and feature upgrades to keep the experience alive,” says Foster referring to what inspired the business model of GlassFit which is the gaming industry adding that “The user earns points from burning calories, beating personal bests and building streaks. These points can be used to unlock the games off the honeycomb UI. The better the game /feature the harder it is to unlock. Any unlock can be shortcuts, and it is those shortcuts that we charge for and make money from. We also sell heart rate monitors and speedometers that certain functions require to use.”

A pre-sales /Kickstarter campaign will be implemented for the UK startup in the next month or two while coinciding with Google’s full Glass launch is the launch date of GlassFit as well. Although this sounds and appears to be a very risky launching strategy for Google Glass, Race Yourself is thinking that Google is able to quickly make a Glasshole out once publicly available.