Health Connect is Google’s way of managing the vast amount of data collected by Android’s numerous fitness tracking tools. This service puts all your health data in one secure place and simplifies sharing between apps, without developers having to build their own data transfer tools.
In 2022 when Google launched, it supported just over 40 data types across six categories. It has now expanded to include Wellness and medical records like allergies, vaccinations, and lab results with Android 16. The Android 16 QPR2 update also introduced step tracking support to Health Connect.
As Google aims to make Health Connect a better tool than its competing Apple Health app, it keeps adding useful features for the service. In the Android Canary release for last month, Google included tweaks to the main Health Connect settings page to prioritise your connected health apps, displaying them in front and centre, and not the most recently used apps.
“App permissions” is no longer a menu item, but is accessible via the “See more health apps” button. “Recent access” under the “Your health data” section lets you view your recent data history. In place of the “Browse health records” page for viewing your records, there is the “Data and access” page. To help users with the feature, a new footnote was included at the bottom. The icons preceding each option on this page have also been removed, which seems like a downgrade.
Health Connect will now handle alcohol consumption, with strings in the app suggesting a wide variety of alcoholic beverages, such as Absinthe, Beer, Brandy, Chuhai, Cider, Cocktail, Gin, Highball, Lager, Mead, Rum, Sake, Shochu, Soju, Tequila, Vodka, Whiskey, and Wine. The app will also keep track of medical conditions, like abdominal pain, back pain, constipation, diarrhoea, earaches, and others.
From daily exercise routine to doctor visits and symptoms, Google wants Health Connect to be a one-stop app for your comprehensive health profile. We don’t know exactly when Google plans to roll out these features, so we just have to wait until they arrive.
