Manually compiling fitness and health-related data from applications that only track a few factors or routines at a time can be very laborious. Although the lack of industry-wide data storage standards doesn’t help, Google believes its new Health Connect app could be the answer everyone is looking for. Midway through November, the app’s beta testing started, but the number of downloads hasn’t increased significantly. If Google includes Health Connect with Android 14—which seems likely—that might change.
Fitness app developers would have to create integrations for each additional app separately without Health Connect. The utility acts as an on-device, secure, and offline middleman for the health information obtained by various apps. For example, you could utilise Health Connect to view SpO2 and heart rate statistics from the companion app for your wearable through your riding app. The beta version of the app hasn’t even reached a million downloads yet, despite the fact that over a dozen Google health and fitness apps already support it.
The inclusion of a Health Connect stub package in the newly published Android 13 QPR2 Beta 1 for Pixel phones suggests that Google will keep its promise to incorporate the app as a system component when Android 14 launches. In order to allow Health Connect to maintain its data offline while receiving upgrades via Google Play System updates rather than Android system OTAs, it is predicted by Esper Senior Technical Editor Mishaal Rahman that Google will create a Project Mainline module for Health Connect.
Because there is no publicly accessible source code or Mainline repository with telltale indicators, it is currently impossible to determine a specific timeline for Health Connect arriving preloaded on Pixel phones. Rahman claims that code alterations noted on the AOSP Gerrit indicate, however, that Health Connect will become an Android 14 system service, making it possible for it to become a pre-installed app on devices other than Pixel phones. Although the workings of the implementation may differ from those of the current beta and the app may have a different package name, Google’s goals appear obvious, so we aren’t complaining.