Google Match Intro at I/O Conference Wisely Shies Away From "Health"

Google left out a crucial word in previewing its Google Fit data-aggregation platform this week: “health.”

Even though Apple played up the “health” angle in announcing its exciting but hardly groundbreaking HealthKit platform earlier this month, Google place the emphasis squarely on fitness. “We want to support users maintain much better track of their fitness ambitions,” Ellie Powers, product manager for Google Play developers, stated for the duration of the Web giant’s yearly Google I/O developers’ conference.

“Before Google Fit, I was attempting to track and keep track of my bike rides through my bike computer, and then my weight coaching through a specialized app, and it was a large hassle,” Powers stated.

I can relate. I track my own, regular bike rides by means of a bike laptop, a GPS cycling app and a wristwatch with built-in heart-charge monitor. None of the three factors are connected to each other, and I often feel that although I’m on my bike, I’m a living, rolling instance of how wellness data lives in silos. Except for one particular issue: When individuals in well being IT talk about overall health data, they are actually referring to healthcare information. Though wellness and healthcare affect each other, they are not the same. Fitness is a form of self-care that can boost well being, but it, too, is distinct from healthcare.

That is not to say there isn’t some overlap, or that there will be convergence at some point, but Powers wisely avoided that discussion in enjoying up Google Fit, which the firm is calling a set of open APIs for aggregating information from numerous devices, like wearables. After all, she was speaking to a area total of tech developers.

Powers demonstrated how Google Fit assists a excess weight-reduction coaching app called Noom pull in exercise information, nutritional information and the user’s excess weight and “talk right to my Withings scale,” as she said. She also mentioned connections with Adidas and Nike goods.

There’s undoubtedly a cynical cause for talking about fitness and not health: the failure of Google Wellness, an overhyped, underused personalized overall health record that garnered massive headlines from a fawning consumer and tech press just for the reality that it was from Google. (Those of us who cover healthcare for a residing saw through the smokescreen.)

As a somewhat of a cynic myself, I really do not discount this concept one bit, but there is a far more practical purpose why “health” was nowhere to be identified in this presentation: fitness and healthcare nonetheless are distinct markets.People who are into fitness and participatory sports spend lots of money on gear and devices, but when it comes to healthcare, Americans anticipate a person else — typically an insurance coverage business — to spend the bill. However everybody eventually requirements healthcare, healthcare is a difficult promote to a customer audience. Fitness is a significantly less difficult sell to a hugely devoted subset of the population.

Google Match Intro at I/O Conference Wisely Shies Away From "Health"