Google has announced exciting new updates to its Health Connect platform at Google I/O 2024, making it even more useful for users. Health Connect, introduced two years ago, acts as a one-stop shop for health and fitness data, streamlining the process for users who use multiple health and fitness tracker apps.
One of the key improvements to Health Connect is the addition of support for history reads. Previously, apps could only access the past 30 days of data stored in Health Connect. With this new feature, apps will be able to access all stored data, allowing for easier migration of health data history between apps.
Additionally, Health Connect will soon allow apps to read health data while running in the background. This eliminates the need for apps to run a foreground service or wait for user interaction before syncing with Health Connect.
These new capabilities will be locked behind new permissions, with users needing to explicitly grant access to apps for background reads and history reads. Users will have the ability to revoke access at any time through Health Connect’s settings.
While Google did not specify an exact release date for these updates, evidence of the new permissions has already been spotted in the Health Connect app shipped in the Android 15 beta. It is possible that the updates will roll out with the Android 15 release before being backported to Android 14 and earlier releases through updates to the Health Connect app on Google Play.