In the past few years, fitness tracking devices have become very popular. When saying this, we mean smartbands, smartwatches, smart sports shoes, etc. However, the mentioned segment doesn’t allow the manufacturers to make significant changes from generation to generation. So the distinguishing factor between the manufacturers has become the way they collect fitness data. Plus, many of them have begun offering various sports data collecting capabilities. Agree that when you see a smartwatch is capable of providing up to 100 or more sports data, you think it’s more powerful than those that collect only 30 sports data. But we should also point out that most of those sports data will be never used. Anyway, to somehow simplify this mess, Google and Samsung have partnered to create Health Connect.
Further reading: Fiture Fitness Mirror Will Help You Get A Nicer Body
Health Connect is a platform and API (application programming interface) that offers developers a toolset to sync users’ health data between Android apps and devices. It turns out there is no difference in what a brand fan you are, health and fitness data can be shared between different platforms.
How Health Connect Works And Collects Fitness Data
The idea behind Health Connect is simple. Users only have to accept the terms, and the platform will start collecting health and fitness data to an encrypted hub. The latter is on a user’s device. As Google proves, users will have full control over what kind of health and fitness data they share and what apps they share it with. To make this work more efficiently, if one app collects some kind of data, it can share data with other apps.
At the launch, Health Connect will support over 50 data types in a number of categories. Among them, we can mention activity, body measurement, cycle tracking, nutrition, sleep, and vitals.
“We’re working alongside Google and other partners to realize the full benefits and potential of Health Connect,” TaeJong Jay Yang, Samsung’s executive vice president, said in a press release. “I’m excited to confirm that Samsung Health will also adopt Health Connect later this year. With users’ permission, this will enable app developers to take advantage of accurate and optimized data measured on Galaxy Watch for Samsung Health and use it in their apps as well.”
For the time being, Health Connect is in an open beta accessible to all Android developers. In this regard, we should say that one of Google’s closest partners is Samsung. But Google is also working with the developers of MyFitnessPal, Leap Fitness, and Withings in an early access program. Google’s own businesses focusing on health and fitness data collecting – Google Fit and Fitbit – will adopt Health Connect as well. So there is every reason to think that the Pixel Watch will support Health Connect when launched later this year.