Oculus Move VR Workout System Might Sync With Apple Health

Apple's mobile ecosystem has been marked by two main pillars in the past few years. While it has been singing praises about its work on protecting users' privacy, it has also been designing its iPhones and Apple Watches to record and store health-related data, from activity tracking to biometrics monitoring. Not all activities, however, can be tracked through phones and wearables, and Facebook is reportedly looking into syncing activity data from its Oculus headsets with Apple Health for a more holistic overview of a person's fitness goals and state.

Launched last year, Oculus Move is more of a fitness framework than a VR workout app. Its purpose is to keep track of how many calories a user burns while playing any VR game. It's a rather basic system that lets Oculus Quest owners still mind their physical health while immersing themselves in virtual worlds.

Those simple metrics, however, could also be useful when included as part of a bigger whole. Specifically, it could be added to a user's activity and movement goals, along with the usual activity tracking like walking, running, or cycling. Based on code seen by Bloomberg in the iPhone app for the Oculus VR system, Facebook is thinking about that as well.

Integrating Oculus Move data could benefit both companies. For Facebook, it could provide a bigger incentive for Oculus VR headset owners to use the system more since their activity could be added to their overall Apple Health figures and goals. For Apple, it represents a data source that it itself doesn't have access to, at least not yet.

Apple is, of course, rumored to be working on its own mixed reality headset that could be launched early next year. Until then, it might have to rely on such third-party sources such as Facebook's Oculus Quest system, and Facebook might be too happy to help out its frenemy.