Google’s Health Connect app is now available in beta
Google announced today that its Health Connect app is now available in beta on the Play Store. Health Connect is designed to centralize access to health and fitness data from various eligible apps. Today, more than 10 health and fitness apps are launching integrations with Health Connect, including MyFitnessPal, Oura, and Peloton.
The app syncs health and fitness data from eligible platforms and allows other apps to access that data with their consent, while providing centralized privacy controls for users. Previously, developers had to establish multiple API connections to share data between different apps, which limited developers’ data sharing options and made it difficult for users to unlock this data for use in different apps.
With Health Connect, developers no longer have to build a completely new integration. Google says it’s as easy to build an integration with a new app as it is to read in new data from Health Connect.
“For example, Android users will now be able to sync and get credit for their Peloton workouts in apps like Oura, MyFitnessPal, WeightWatchers and Lifesum,” Google said in a blog post. “Now, through a simple integration with Health Connect, Peloton members will have the ability to share their fitness stats across the ecosystem of apps they use to support their overall wellness.”
Image credit: Google
Google says Health Connect offers a standardized data schema that supports 40+ data types in six categories. The form covers a wide range of use cases, from exercises to sleep tracking to vital signs.
The app not only simplifies app connectivity, but also gives users more privacy controls by letting them monitor which apps have access to data. In the past, users had to navigate to multiple apps to manage data permissions, and developers had to build user interfaces for permission management themselves. Health Connect allows users to manage permissions in one place. For developers, Health Connect offers the permissions management hub and granular permissions interfaces out of the box.
Google partnered with Samsung to build Health Connect with the goal of simplifying the connection between health and fitness apps. The company first unveiled the initiative earlier this year at its I/O developer conference.
Health Connect is available for download as a public beta via the Google Play Store starting today. Google has not detailed its plans regarding a full public release. At launch, the app has integrations with Fitbit, Samsung Health, Google Fit, MyFitnessPal, Peloton, Oura, WeightWatchers, Flo, Lifesum, Signos, Tonal, Outdooractive and Proov Insight.
