Editorial Breakthrough Innovation for Health and Wellness Enthusiasts

For years, health technology prioritized constant exercise, breaking personal records and meeting daily physical goals. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a distinct cultural shift in how users approach health – people are redefining the norms in this space and are approaching health with a more holistic mindset. It’s less about calories burned and pounds lost, and more about understanding their bodies – both physically and mentally – and prioritizing what’s most important to them, like healthy eating and ensuring a good night’s rest, in addition to exercise goals. 

With this in mind, we’re continuing to build on the Galaxy Watch experience by focusing on one of my biggest priorities here at Samsung – delivering holistic health solutions for our users. For years, we’ve worked to deliver comprehensive health features that give our users the tools they need to achieve their goals and live healthy lifestyles. 

We’re thrilled that Samsung and Google are working together to fulfill this need with a new solution, Health Connect. Just announced at Google I/O, developers now have access to a single set of APIs that enable the creation of fitness and health experiences. With the new Health Connect API, users will have a comprehensive set of controls to manage their health and fitness data across apps. 

Health Connect supports more than 50 data types such as exercise and sleep, as well as your vitals such as heart rate and blood pressure. To ensure users have a complete control of their data, Health Connect provides centralized privacy controls making it easy to give permission to the apps they want to share their on-device data with.

And this isn’t just a proof of concept. We’re working alongside Google and other partners to realize the full benefits and potential of Health Connect. I’m excited to confirm that Samsung Health will also adopt Health Connect this year. With users’ permission, this enables app developers to take advantage of accurate and optimized data measured on Galaxy Watch for Samsung Health in their apps as well.

We can’t wait to see how developers use Health Connect to bring tangible, holistic health benefits to Galaxy users.  This new service is a massive step towards empowering users to experience the advantages of holistic living.

It’s been a busy year for us on the Samsung Health R&D team, but finally getting to share what we’ve been working on is one of my favorite parts of my job. Of course, this is just a fraction of everything behind the scenes and we can’t wait to share future updates on software and hardware experiences as we continue to lead the industry with next-generation wearables. Until then, have a happy I/O!  

By: TaeJong Jay Yang, EVP and Head of Health R&D Team at Mobile eXperience Business, Samsung Electronics