Supernatural's head of fitness on rebooting the VR exercise app after leaving Meta

It's rare for tech companies to get a second chance at life, but that's the story of the VR exercise platform Supernatural. After Meta announced that it was cutting the company's staff and pausing new content for the exercise app in January Supernatural made the surprising revelation that it will be relaunching later this year as an independent company. While it's getting a bit more expensive — back to its original launch pricing of $20 a month or $200 a year — that probably won't deter the company's superfans, many of whom were heartbroken about the app's potential shutdown. 

So what's next for Supernatural? Leanne Pedante, one of Supernatural's founding coaches and its current Head of Fitness, says the company is currently working on bringing back everything its existing users love with its reboot. "We have a library of over 3,000 workouts that we've built over the years — all of that comes back," she said in an interview on the Engadget Podcast. "The same coaches, the same beautiful environments. We're working on our music negotiations right now. We'll also start releasing new content, which hasn't been happening for quite a while now."

Based on her conversations with Supernatural's community, Pedante says many members are onboard with the new plan, even given the price hikes. (Members of the Supernatural subreddit aren't as pleased.) New and existing subscribers can sign up to be Founding Members of the new app for a slightly discounted $180 subscription for the first year.

"The other thing that's been really cool is that because we're a small team now... essentially we're a flat organization," she added. "There's no bureaucracy. We can move really fast. And so immediately we were able to respond to people talking about there being a [paywall] barrier by creating a Supernatural scholarship program." 

In its FAQ, the company says that limited scholarships will be offered quarterly to members undergoing financial hardships. They'll be reviewed by Supernatural's team to "grant support where it's needed most." Some members have also suggested that they'd want to pay for someone else's membership.

Even with a slight price increase, Supernatural's cost and convenience is still well below a typical fitness club, or even community clubs like the YMCA. There's no need to commute to another place, no traces of other people's sweat on equipment and none of the horrors of the communal showers. Of course, that also means you don't get the benefits of exercise facilities, which typically offer a variety of equipment for more intense workouts. You won't get much cardio or strength work done with just a headset alone. And of course, you'll also have to shell out $350 for the Meta Quest 3S or a whopping $600 for the Quest 3, both of which are far more expensive than they were at launch.

Similar to VRChat, Supernatural has also built up a core group of users who love the community building aspects of the app. She recently spent two weekends at meetups in Seattle and Denver, where she was able to chat with hundreds of subscribers, including a couple that got married after working out together in Supernatural.

While VR is at the core of Supernatural — its Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin founded the app as part of their VR studio Within — there's potential for its workouts to reach even more people with devices like the Nex Playground. It uses a camera to capture what you're doing and project digital objects on your TV; similar to Microsoft's Kinect, it can support games that are controller- and headset-free. 

 "I can definitely say that we're actively exploring where else to meet our members outside of headsets," Pedante said. "I think in fitness for sure, one of the main things that allows a person to create consistency and create a habit is if you build trust and a relationship with your fitness community. And so once you've established that trust, which Supernatural members have established over the past six years with us and with each other, then, you want to be with those people to further your experience, right? So whether that's running, or a couch to 5K type of thing [training programs outside of headsets for members], people are absolutely interested in that, and we're exploring all of that."