Letting you play data traffic cop
Google and Samsung have been working hard to make Wear OS 3 software worthy enough for people to use on the best smartwatches an Android user can get. As part of the improvement initiative, one of the main attractions was an all-in-one management hub that let users decide what to do with all the fitness and health data they’ve generated. That hub, better known as Health Connect, is now available for wearers to download and use in beta.
Health Connect lets you, the consumer, play the middle person between all the ways you generate that data — be it through sensor pickups or information you’ve put in yourself — and the apps and services you use to make sense and take action on it. For manufacturers of smartwatches and fitness equipment and alongside app developers, the new API regime simplifies what they need to do to allow users to plug in and push out their data.
With Health Connect, users can toggle what data gets sent to which apps and see when apps access that data. The data is separated into more than 40 types across six categories. 13 apps already support Health Connect including Fitbit, Google Fit, Peloton, Samsung Health, and others. If you own any equipment that interfaces with these apps or self-report information on them, you’ll be able to manage where it goes (if it goes at all) with Health Connect.
While this new initiative is framed as a big driver for the growth of Wear OS 3, exercising Android owners benefit on the whole here. The app can be picked up on the Play Store right now.
