Your Body as the Controller
An iPhone fitness gaming app where real body movements control three mobile games.
Inside the product
Project and context
The fitness gaming app made physical movement part of the game. You placed your iPhone in front of you and controlled the character by jumping, ducking, and moving sideways. No additional sensors or controllers were required.
Three different games, coins, badges, missions, and leaderboards turned individual sessions into long-term progression.
Players could also compete asynchronously. One player set a result and the other responded later, creating competition without requiring both to be online at the same time.
My role
As CTO, co-founder, and managing director of Evomo, I was responsible for the app’s product development and technical implementation.
My focus was on the backend we developed ourselves, integrating the three games into the iOS app, and connecting them to our movement recognition. I also handled the release process and App Store operations.
Technical foundations
The app connected three games to our Motion AI SDK. The iPhone sensors captured body movement, the model ran directly on the device, and translated those movements into character controls.
Our backend managed progress, coins, badges, missions, leaderboards, and asynchronous challenges. The integration connected each game to these shared product features.
The central technical challenges
The central challenge was combining an intuitive app interface, gamification, and several games with one shared movement-control system.
The response between physical movement and visible action was particularly important. Latency had to remain low enough for the controls to feel direct, understandable, and fun.
At the same time, the games, backend, and shared progression features had to behave like one coherent product.
Results and evidence
Our movement recognition became a complete consumer product with three games, shared progression, and social challenges. The app launched in the App Store and required no additional hardware.
We presented the app on German Shark Tank in 2021, where its movement controls were tested on the show.
My perspective
We turned our movement recognition into a complete consumer product. The app brought product development, mobile engineering, gaming, and machine learning into one experience.