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Healthy livin'

Healthy livin'

Google ships Health Connect, Volkswagen builds a Star Trek chair, Nike likes web3 apparel

Amol Avasare
November 15, 2022

For those of you with a fancy Herman Miller chair, you've been one-upped by none other than Volkswagen. The automaker unveiled a Star Trek office chair that can move at 12mph with a range of 7.5 miles. With a heated seat, party lights, and even a car horn, what better way to blow your WFH equipment stipend?

Wait... They shipped what!?

Google rolled out a public beta of Health Connect, an Apple Health style app.

Details: Rather than needing multiple API connections, fitness apps can now integrate with each other just by pulling data from Health Connect. As an example, users can now get credit for Peloton workouts in other apps like MyFitnessPal. Some notes:

Initial partners incl. Fitbit, Oura, MyFitnessPal, Samsung Health, and others
Standardized data schema supporting 40 data types across 6 categories
Single hub for users to manage permissions across connected apps

Why it matters: Google has slowly beefed up its consumer fitness and health offerings, acquiring Fitbit and launching a health-feature heavy Pixel smartwatch.

It's wild that until now, Android hasn't had the equivalent of Apple Health. The new Health Connect offering is a big step in bringing together the wearables and fitness ecosystem for Android users.

It's also a harbinger of things to come - we can expect to see a lot more from Google in the fitness and wearables world in 2023.