While you may rely on one or two apps for your fitness journey, being able to get all the data at a glance is a valuable part of the Google Health Connect experience. And while it’s remained a hub since its release, it’s now looking to do more, adding step tracking to its arsenal.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because this change was first reported about a week ago, and now Android Authority has spotted the feature going live in Android 16 QPR2 Beta 2. The feature is highlighted in the release notes for the build, sharing the ‘Health Connect will now automatically tracks steps using the device’s sensors.’
This could be a big first step
Although it’s not the most exciting update, this small change paves the way for Health Connect to become something more interesting. While it’s not totally clear just how far Google wants to take Health Connect, and there hasn’t been any official word from the brand that it’s looking to evolve the platform, it does have the means to do it.
This is also important because while Health Connect can gather data from a variety of different apps on a phone, it’s up to the developer whether they want to allow that at all. We saw an example of how this can play out with Garmin, sharing only a portion of the data gathered by its devices with Health Connect.
For the most part, you get pretty much everything you need from Garmin here, but some of the proprietary stuff like body battery, training load, and running tolerance are data points that the brand isn’t willing to share with Health Connect. Naturally, this is something that every brand can choose to do, which could lead to some issues down the line.
This is why it could be important to evolve Health Connect to track its own stats, so that it can provide users with a clear view of all its health and fitness metrics. Again, this might not even be a path that Google is looking to take, but clearly the brand is moving in a new direction, waking its dormant Health Connect app to do more.
