Tag Archives: Health Connect API

What’s new in Android Health

Posted by Sara Hamilton, Developer Relations Engineer

Health and fitness data is interconnected – sleep, nutrition, workouts and more all inform one another. For example, consider that your sleep impacts your recovery, which impacts your readiness to run your favorite 5k. Over time, your recovery and workout habits drive metrics like heart rate variability, resting heart rate, VO2Max and more! Often this data exists in silos, making it hard for users to get a holistic view of their health data.

We want to make it simple for people to use their favorite apps and devices to track their health by bringing this data together. They should have full control of what data they share, and when they share it. And, we want to make sure developers can enable this with less complexity and fewer lines of code.

This is why we’ve continued to improve our Android Health offerings, and why today at I/O 2023, we’re announcing key updates across both Health Connect and Health Services for app developers and users.

What is Android Health?

Android Health brings together two important platforms for developers to deliver robust health and fitness app to users; Health Connect and Health Services.

Health Connect is an on-device data store that provides APIs for storing and sharing health and fitness data between Android apps. Before Health Connect, there was not a consistent way for developers to share data across Android apps. They had to integrate with many different APIs, each with a different set of data types and different permissions management frameworks.

Now, with Health Connect, there is less fragmentation. Health Connect provides a consistent set of 40+ data types and a single permissions management framework for users to control data permissions. This means that developers can share data with less effort, enabling people to access their health data in their favorite apps, and have more control over data permissions.

Screenshot of permissions via Health Connect

Health Services is our API surface for accessing sensor data on Wear OS devices in a power-efficient way. Before Health Services, developers had to work directly with low-level sensors, which required different configurations on different devices, and was not battery-efficient.

With Health Services, there is now a consistent API surface across all Wear OS 3+ devices, allowing developers to write code once and run it across all devices. And, the Health Services architecture means that developers get great power savings in the process, allowing people to track longer workouts.

Health Connect is coming to Android 14 with new features

Health Connect and Android 14 logos with an X between them to indicate collaboration

Health Connect is currently available for download as an app on the Play Store. We are excited to announce that starting with the release of Android 14 later this year, Health Connect will be a core part of Android and available on all Android mobile devices. Users will be able to access Health Connect directly from Settings on their device, helping to control how their health data is shared across apps.

Screenshot showing Health Connect avaialble in the privacy settings of an Android device

Several new features will be shipped with the Health Connect Android 14 release. We’re adding a new exercise routes feature to allow users to share maps of their workouts through Health Connect. We’ve also made improvements to make it easier for people to log their menstrual cycles. And, Health Connect updates will be delivered through Google Play System Updates, which will allow new features to be updated often.

Health Services now supports more uses cases with new API capabilities

We’ve released several exciting changes to Health Services this year to support more use cases. Our new Batching Modes feature allows developers to adjust the data delivery frequency of heart rate data to support home gym use cases. We’ve also added new API capabilities, like golf shot detection.

The new version of Wear OS arrives later this year. Wear OS 4 will be the most performant yet, delivering improved battery life for the next generation of Wear OS watches. We will be releasing additional Health Services updates with this change, including improved background body sensor permissions.

Our developer ecosystem is growing

There are over 50 apps already integrated with Health Connect and hundreds of apps with health services, including Peloton, Withings, Oura, and more. These apps are using Health Connect to incorporate new data, to give people an interconnected health experience, without building out many new API integrations. Learn more about how these health and fitness apps are creating new experiences for users in areas like sleep, exercise, nutrition, and more in our I/O technical session.

We also have over 100 apps integrated with Health Services. Apps using Health Services are seeing higher engagement from users with Wear apps, and are giving their users longer battery life in the process. For example, Strava found that users with their Wear app did 25% more activities than those without.

Get started with Health Connect

We hope many more developers will join us in bringing unique experiences within Android Health to your users this year.

If you’d like to create a more interconnected health experience for your users, we encourage you to integrate with Health Connect. And if you are a Wear developer, make sure you are using Health Services to get the best battery performance and future proofing for all upcoming Wear OS devices.

Check out our Health Services documentation, Health Connect documentation, and code samples to get started!

To learn more, watch the I/O session:

Withings reduces 50% of its data sync code by streamlining health and fitness API integrations with Health Connect

Posted by the Android team

French consumer electronics company Withings hosts one of the largest ecosystems of digital health and wellness products in the world. The company’s products include smart watches, smart scales, blood pressure monitors, and its own health-tracking application. Formerly known as Health Mate, the Withings application gives Withings users an easy way to track all of their health information—like activity, weight, ECG records, and sleep—obtained from Withings devices.

While Withings works to create a central hub for its users to access their health-related data, the number of devices and applications for monitoring health has grown substantially. And as health and fitness data spread across multiple platforms, it can be difficult for users to easily track and analyze this information.

To extend access to additional metrics and give Withings users a chance to use the application with their non-Withings apps and devices, Withings integrated Health Connect, Android’s latest API offering that gives users a simpler way to consolidate and share their health and fitness data across applications.

Health data is more powerful together

Before integrating Health Connect, Withings users had to manually activate which health and fitness apps could sync data to and from the Withings app. Now, thanks to Health Connect, its users can grant permissions to new health and fitness applications and automatically sync their data to the Withings app, letting them find their data in one easy-to-manage place.

“We integrated Health Connect in Withings app to grow our health sphere and offer a more complete experience to our users by supporting a wider range of data,” said Sophie Zecri, a mobile software engineer at Withings. “Health Connect helped us create a richer health-tracking interface and a more efficient overview for users.”

By uniting health data using the Health Connect API, Withings application offers its users a more holistic view of their health and makes it easier to develop a deeper understanding of key health insights with the data they gather.

For instance, Withings’ users can now combine their other workout- or calorie-tracking applications with the Withings app. By doing this, users can more easily track how changes in one area of their health may be affecting another. Additionally, the Withings app can provide greater guidance and more specialized programs to meet each user's unique needs, such as specific dietary recommendations and recipes or more specialized exercise programs.

Withings also wanted the data available through the Withings application to be accessible in its users' other health and fitness apps. Integrating with Health Connect made this possible. “We wanted to extend access to additional metrics, giving our users a chance to use Withings devices with their other applications,” said Sophie.

Ensuring that users felt in control of their data was also a top priority for the Withings team. They saw Health Connect as a powerful tool that’s equally secure for both Withings and its users. With Health Connect, users can easily manage permissions in one place, with granular controls to see which apps are accessing data at any given time. And for Withings, setting up permission checks was as easy as dropping in a simple piece of code provided by Health Connect.

Simplify connectivity between apps with Health Connect

The amount of work required to connect with other third-party health and fitness applications was Withings’ biggest roadblock to giving its users access to additional syncs. All the APIs for every other app, with all their unique code, made integrations complex and expensive for Withings to maintain.

“Connecting with other apps’ APIs was onerous. Any changes had to be repeated for every API, which meant expanding the codebase and increasing the risk of bugs that could impact Withings app’s quality,” said Sophie.

Health Connect lets Withings developers maintain less code while preserving stability and minimizing potential bugs. This translates to a reduced codebase and increased productivity for other projects. By integrating Health Connect with the Withings app, Withings reduced the amount of code related to data sync with third-party applications by 50%.

Headshot of Sophie Zecri, Mobile Software Engineer at Withings, with quote, 'Integrating Health Connect was really rewarding for us. We're thrilled we can enrich the user experience by generating true synergy, letting users dive deeper into the details of their health aspects.'

Preparing for a future with Health Connect

The Withings team attributes much of its success to the available Android resources for developers looking to integrate Health Connect with their company’s app. Withings developers used the Health Connect UX developer guide to aid the integration, and they used the Health Connect toolbox for testing and to understand how Withings app behaves with other applications that have integrated Health Connect.

The Withings team is excited to support new data types as its product range grows and new biomarker measurements become available. Currently, the company plans to expand its use of Health Connect by adding more data types related to women’s health.

“I would recommend Health Connect to other engineers looking to unite data for its users,” said Sophie. “Health Connect is a powerful, interesting, and easy tool to use.”

Join the many other apps using Health Connect today

Streamline integrations with other health and fitness apps while providing your users with deeper health insights using Health Connect.

Get started by viewing Android’s Introduction to Health Connect. Then, head over to the Health Connect Codelab and learn how you can integrate the Health Connect API today.

Signos streamlines integrations with other health and fitness apps through a single Health Connect API

Posted by the Android TeamSignos helps people make healthier decisions and achieve their health goals by giving them a simple way to track and monitor their body’s response to glucose throughout the day. Pairing a continuous glucose monitor with an AI-driven app, Signos builds an understanding of a member's metabolic profile in real time, providing personalized nutrition suggestions based on their glucose patterns. This includes determining which foods are best for a member and when to eat them, or when to exercise to bring glucose levels back within a healthy range for optimal weight loss.

The Signos team knew that having more context on a member’s daily lifestyle behaviors—including exercise, sleep, and stress—would give a clearer view of health and allow the app to deliver more personalized recommendations. To integrate these additional wellness insights into its app, Signos developers used Health Connect, an Android API that unifies health and fitness data from multiple devices and apps into one platform.


Putting the member first

Signos integrated Health Connect so its members’ health and fitness data from apps like Fitbit, Samsung Health, and Google Fit can be automatically synced to the Signos app. Instead of requiring members to manually input this data from multiple sources, they can use Health Connect and enable Signos to sync with the other integrated apps they use to support their well-being. Not only does this save members time, it also ensures consistent and accurate data.

With Health Connect, it’s easier for Signos to identify patterns in a member's health and offer more insightful recommendations based on their glucose patterns. It also provides Signos members with a better understanding of how their daily choices affect their glucose, metabolic health, and weight by bringing their health data together in Signos, where they can easily view it and make comprehensive connections.

Signos understands data privacy is important, and with Health Connect, Signos members can securely manage their health information on Android devices. When a member first opens Health Connect, they're guided through the process of selecting which health metrics and apps they want to provide access to, giving them complete control of what's made available to Signos.


One implementation for many data sources

Before implementing Health Connect, Signos developers struggled to connect relevant data from multiple sources because many APIs weren't available or too many integrations needed to be created and maintained. This meant the Signos team had to write individual integrations to support multiple API surfaces for every app they wanted to sync data from. Now, they only need to write one, saving them a tremendous amount of development time and effort.

With a single API connection through Health Connect, Signos was able to unify health and wellness data from the apps most used by members. “Now that data from workouts, sleep, weight logs, and heart rate automatically sync from other apps, members can see how all of this data impacts their glucose throughout the day,” said Emma Allison, vice president of product at Signos.
'The more data we can tap into, the more complete a picture of metabolic health we can provide. This kind of holistic view is unprecedented and is the foundation of a more personalized approach to overall health that helps our members reach their goals.' — Hannah Russin, CMO of Signos.
Additionally, implementing Health Connect is simple. Using specialized constructors, Signos developers were able to take Health Connect records and convert them into the internal models used for Signos’ health data. This allowed the Signos app to process Health Connect data the same way it processes its own, so the experience is completely seamless to members. Sleep logged from their wearables that’s synced through Health Connect looks exactly the same to them as sleep logged straight into Signos.

“One aspect I was pleasantly surprised by was the user onboarding UX,” said Signos developer Jake Smith. “A simple, drop-in piece of code brings them straight to the Play Store to install Health Connect and then right back to the app so they can set up the permissions and start reaping the benefits.”


More connections, more opportunities

Currently, Health Connect’s first integration with Signos syncs personal wellness data like exercise, heart rate, sleep, and hydration. In the future, Signos plans to build out more robust integrations and in-app experiences with each data set, including women’s health, nutrition, and even mindfulness.

Signos is excited about what the future of Health Connect will bring. Health Connect helps standardize different data types and allows Android apps to freely connect to the API, so Signos won’t have to create any further integrations as other apps adopt Health Connect. This means that as the Health Connect ecosystem grows, so will Signos’ ability to help its members.


Get started with Health Connect

Health Connect lets developers and users securely connect with multiple Android apps and devices. Watch the DevByte introduction video to learn how you can get started with Health Connect.

Leading Health and Fitness Apps Roll Out Health Connect Integrations

Posted by Sara Hamilton, Developer RelationsEarlier this year, we introduced Health Connect as a way for app developers like you to have early access to a platform that securely shares health and fitness data across Android devices, with user consent. We collaborated with Samsung to build this platform which simplifies the connectivity between your apps while providing centralized privacy controls for users. We are now making the Health Connect (Beta) app available for download in Google Play to give users a central place to manage their privacy settings with granular controls to see which apps have access to data at any given time.

Today, 10+ health, fitness and wellness apps are rolling out integrations with the platform including early adopters of Health Connect like MyFitnessPal, Oura and Peloton.
Against a light blue background, an illustration of a person and their dog looking at a large screen with a 3x3 display of health app icons: Lifesum, Fitbit, MyFitnessPal, Dexcom, Samsung Health, Oura, Peloton, Flo,and WW.
Through the first wave of integrations, we have seen Health Connect provide many key benefits to developers.


Reduced fragmentation makes it easier to give users more holistic health insights

By enabling health and fitness apps to talk to each other, each app is able to provide a user with better, more holistic health insights.

In the past, developers had to establish multiple API connections to share data between different apps and each integration was costly to build and maintain. This limited developers’ data sharing capabilities and made it hard for users to unlock this data so that it could be utilized in different apps.

Now, with Health Connect, building an integration with a new app is as simple as reading in new data from Health Connect, rather than building a whole new integration.

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. Now, through a single integration with Health Connect, Peloton Members will have the option to share their workout stats across the ecosystem of apps they use to support their overall wellness.

Phone screen showing App permissions for all apps that can access data stored in Health Connect

Standardized data schema ensures data consistency between apps

Health Connect provides a standardized data schema which supports 40+ data types across 6 categories. The schema is intuitive to use and covers a wide range of use cases, from exercises to sleep tracking to vital signs. It only requires just a few lines of code to read and write any of these data types in Health Connect. Health Connect even supports complex aggregations so that you can completely customize your queries to your app’s use case.

"With Health Connect APIs, our engineers were able to easily adapt their existing architecture in order to read and write user health data such as nutrition, hydration, exercise, and steps. With this integration, we're now able to consume data from any 3rd party application that also writes to Health Connect, expanding our users' choices while allowing them more flexibility to grant granular permissions about which data they want to share"
– Jason Peterson, Chief Technology Officer of MyFitnessPal


Centralize privacy controls for users, with less code

Previously, users had to navigate to multiple apps to manage data permissions. And, developers had to build out permissions management UIs themselves.

With Health Connect, users can easily manage permissions in a single place, with granular controls to see which apps are accessing data at any given time.

For developers, Health Connect provides the permissions management hub and granular permissions UIs out of the box, so you can set this up quickly.

Phone screen showing granular permissions for Run Tracker app to access in Health Connect
granular permissions screen that shows the different data types

For example, Signos was able to quickly set up permissions checks with Health Connect. “One aspect I was pleasantly surprised by was the user onboarding UX,” said Signos developer Jake Smith. “A simple, drop-in piece of code sets up the permissions so users can start reaping the benefits.”


We’re just getting started

Join the many developers who have already integrated with Health Connect and don’t miss out on the opportunity to develop richer insights for your users. Check out our documentation, helpful video tutorials, and code samples – and start building today!

Introducing Health Connect, a new API for Android app developers to securely access user health data

Posted by Chris Wilk, Product Manager

Android Jetpack with heart beat for health 

From helping you log your meals with MyFitnessPal to getting a holistic view of your health with Withings, apps and devices are a source for many kinds of useful health and fitness data. As Android developers, connecting and sharing this data between apps can help you provide more meaningful experiences and insights for your users. However, much of this information is spread across multiple experiences and different devices, making it difficult to bring together. Moreover, there are no centralized privacy controls for Android users.


Introducing Health Connect

This is why we’ve created Health Connect, a platform and API for Android app developers. With user permission, developers can use a single set of APIs to securely access and share health and fitness data across Android devices.

We're building this new unified platform in collaboration with Samsung to simplify connectivity between apps. We appreciate Samsung’s collaboration as we roll out Health Connect to foster richer app experiences while also providing centralized privacy controls for users.

We've been working with developers including MyFitnessPal, Leap Fitness and Withings as part of an early access program. In addition, Samsung Health, Google Fit and Fitbit are adopting Health Connect. Starting today, all developers can get access to Health Connect's common set of APIs for Android via Android Jetpack.

Health Connect fits in with Google’s wider efforts to help billions of people be healthier, using our platforms and technology to connect and bring more meaning to health information.


How does Health Connect work?

How Health Connect Works

How Health Connect Works

Health Connect supports many common health and fitness data types and categories, including: activity, sleep, nutrition, body measurements and vitals like heart rate and blood pressure.

With user permission, developers can securely read from and write data to Health Connect, using standardized schema and API behavior. Users will have full control over their privacy settings, with granular controls to see which apps are requesting access to data at any given time. The data in Health Connect is all on-device and encrypted. Users will have the ability to shut off access or delete data they don’t want on their device, and the option to prioritize one data source over another when using multiple apps.

Getting started

It’s easy to get started with Health Connect. Health Connect’s single set of APIs makes it simple to manage permissions and read and write data. Here’s an example of how you can request permissions and then write some data.

First, build a set of the permissions you plan to request read or write access to. In this example we are reading and writing steps and heart rate. 

private val permissions =
  setOf(
    Permission.createReadPermission(Steps::class),
    Permission.createWritePermission(Steps::class),
    Permission.createReadPermission(HeartRate::class),
    Permission.createWritePermission(HeartRate::class),
  )

// then, create a permissions request for this set of permissions

Then, launch the permissions request, which will bring the user to the Health Connect permissions UI to grant permissions.

Once the user grants permission, you are ready to read and write data. Here’s an example of how to write steps data over a period of time. Include the total number of steps, start and end time, and timezone information, and then insert the data into Health Connect. 

private suspend fun writeSomeData(client: HealthConnectClient) {
    val records = mutableListOf<Record>()

    records.add(
      Steps(
        count = 888,
        startTime = START_TIME,
        endTime = END_TIME,
        startZoneOffset = null,
        endZoneOffset = null,
      )
    )
    // add additional records as needed
}

Learn more

Health Connect is now available to developers: