Yipli fitness gaming mat review: A fun option for home workouts in the times of COVID

Looking up ‘Gaming mat’ on Google when I was told I’d be receiving one to review only threw up images of funky mouse pads for gaming laptops/computers, and given I’m a PlayStation diehard, I was pretty certain I wasn’t getting one of these. And what I received was something I’m sure even you’ve never seen before – a fitness mat that incorporates gaming. It’s named the Yipli fitness gaming mat, and it does exactly what it says on the label.

With new variants of the COVID-19 virus coming at the world thick and fast, millions are still largely confined to their homes, and since we’re all working from home, fitness has witnessed a sharp fall on the list of priorities. It’s because of this that the Yipli gaming mat is more relevant now than ever. It’s essentially a yoga mat containing motion sensors that can track over 40 body movements when you play the games designed specifically by Yipli for users of the mat.

The Yipli gaming mat incorporates motion sensors that can detect over 40 different body movements. Image: Tech2/Amaan Ahmed

Measuring 182.9 cm in length and 61 cm in width, the mat – which feels fairly high-quality – occupies a reasonable amount of space in a mid-size living room. It weighs 1.5 kg, which isn’t too heavy, but may be a little taxing for the aged to lug around.

It features a black box sporting translucent Yipli branding that lights up when you switch it on using a small circular button on the left of the box. The button on the review unit itself seemed to be somewhat temperamental, refusing to register inputs occasionally, which meant multiple presses were required to switch the mat on/off. The light in the box changes colour as per the state of charge of the mat – green between 30 to 100 percent, orange between 30 and 10 percent, and red when it’s under 10 percent. However, there’s no way to see the exact state of charge of the mat at any given point.

Up to two players can use the gaming mat at the same time; arrows in the middle denote specified areas of play. Image: Tech2/Amaan Ahmed

Charging the mat fully – which has a 1,500 mAh battery – took less than two hours, and every charge results in a run time of anywhere between six to eight hours, which is also what Yipli claims.

To start playing, one needs to download the Yipli app on their smartphone, create an account, sync the mat to the app and then choose from over 16 games developed specifically for the mat to download and install on your phone. The setup process is quite smooth and hassle-free, and you should be able to have the mat linked up with the app and the games ready to play in no time at all. As per a user’s liking, they can use either the phone as the display for the games (Yipli bundles a phone stand with the mat), or hook it up to a laptop/PC screen via a charging cable. You can also choose to cast your phone screen onto your smart TV.

Colour of illumination in the box changes depending on the mat's state of charge. Image: Tech2/Amaan Ahmed

I found it easiest to get going using the phone as the display for the games, as starting up and getting right into it is the most seamless this way. And immediately, I could see the appeal – the games themselves may be fairly basic, but they focus on putting the user through specific workouts.

Each game has a different theme, and while I didn’t try them all out, I did experience Joyful Jumps, Mat Beats and Skater. The first of these makes you run and jump, the second needs you to match the beats of a song by stepping on different parts of the mat, and the last one makes you skip and dodge obstacles by stepping and jumping on the mat.

In practice, the mat works really well – it registers all inputs fairly accurately, and once you get the hang of the game, you’ll be hooked in no time. So much so, that you may end up getting a little carried away and pushing yourself a little too hard – and that was a concern I had with Joyful Jumps, which essentially lets you run and jump endlessly. Because there are no stipulated long pauses between rounds, you could end up tiring yourself out pretty quickly.

You can choose to cast the game from your phone onto your smart TV, but it is a little laggy. Image: Tech2/Amaan Ahmed

I managed to gas my unfit present-day self out after 10 minutes of playing the game. This is great to rein in kids on a sugar high, but adults may end up being too hard on themselves because these games won’t tell you to back off for a bit. You can also play with a second person on the mat, with a set of arrows denoting specified areas for multiplayer use. By adding profiles of any relatives/friends who also use the mat on the Yipli app, users can keep track of their fitness scores on the virtual leaderboard.

Casting the game on my smart TV made it a more enjoyable viewing experience, but the games themselves tend to lag just that little bit when you do that, and that means you end up making plenty of mistakes. And while the mat itself feels reasonably durable, the light tread on the underside of the mat is likely to wear out over extended durations of running and jumping on the mat, post which grip could be an issue on floors that are inherently slippery.

Light tread on the underside of the mat likely to wear out with prolonged use. Image: Tech2/Amaan Ahmed

However, all said and done, the Yipli fitness mat is a novel offering that serves a purpose more important than ever. If you cannot go to the gym and don’t feel like stepping out of your home, the Yipli gaming mat ensures you don’t have an excuse to not work out. If you buy it from Yipli’s own e-store at present, you can get the mat for even cheaper, as it is priced at Rs 4,999, a full Rs 2,000 less than it costs on Amazon.



from Firstpost Tech Latest News https://ift.tt/3GNQPeX

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

COVID-19 origins: Should we pay more attention to the lab leak theory and formally investigate it?

Image
A year and a half into the pandemic, we still do not know exactly where the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, came from. The prevailing view so far has been that the virus “spilled over” from bats into humans. But there are increasing calls to investigate the possibility that it emerged from a lab in Wuhan, China, where Covid first appeared at the end of 2019. So what do we know for sure, and what do we need still to find out? We know the sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is close to that of bat coronaviruses . Several decades ago its “ancestor” was circulating in bat populations in southern Asia. But there are still many unanswered questions: we don’t know how the virus arrived in Wuhan, how its sequence evolved to allow human infection, and under what conditions it infected the first people who crossed its path. And for each of these stages, we don’t know whether there was a human contribution (direct or indirect). Zoonotic transmission pathways, in other words the pas
Read more

Menstrual cups are cheaper, more sustainable than pads and tampons for women

Image
Every year in America, women spend at least US$2.8 billion on sanitary pads and tampons that can take hundreds of years to decompose . Is there a more economical and environmentally friendly way? To find out, we asked Susan Powers , a professor of sustainable environmental systems at Clarkson University about her work comparing the environmental impact of tampons, sanitary pads and menstrual cups. What is a menstrual cup? A menstrual cup is a type of reusable feminine hygiene product. It’s a small, flexible bell-shaped cup made of rubber or silicone that a woman inserts into her vagina to catch and collect menstrual fluid. It can be used for up to 12 hours, after which it is removed to dispose of the fluid and cleaned. The cup is rinsed with hot water and soap between each insertion and sterilized in boiling water at least once per period. A cup can last up to 10 years . Although menstrual cups have been around for decades, they historically have been less popular than pads or ta
Read more

Human bodies respond to infections differently depending on the time of day

Image
When microorganisms – such as bacteria or viruses – infect us, our immune system jumps into action. It’s highly trained to sense and eliminate infections and clear up any damage caused by them. It’s typically assumed our immune systems work the exact same way regardless of whether an infection occurs during the day or at night. But research spanning over half a century now shows our bodies actually respond differently at day and night. The reason for this is our body clock, and the fact that each cell in the body, including our immune cells, can tell what time of day it is. Our body clock has evolved over millions of years to help us survive. Every cell in the body has a collection of proteins that indicate the time depending on their levels. Knowing whether it’s day or night means our body can adjust its functions and behaviours (such as when we want to eat) to the correct time. Our body clock does this by generating 24 hour rhythms (also termed circadian rhythms ) in how cells f
Read more