Android 16 tipped to get big health monitoring upgrade –and your Fitbit could be the first to take advantage
- Big upgrades for Android’s Health Connect are in the pipeline
- You’ll soon be able to store medical record data
- Fitbit could be the first app to tap into that data
We’ve only just got used to Android 15 being around, but Android 16 is already in its early testing phase – and a new leak suggests that when that upgrade arrives, it’ll bring some additional features to your Fitbit app.
According to some code digging done by Android Authority, an upgrade to Health Connect is being prepped in Android 16. Health Connect is the Google-developed central hub for all your health and fitness data, which can be shared between apps.
We already know that medical records are going to be added to Health Connect with the full roll-out of Android 16 – records including vaccinations, allergies, pregnancy details and more – and the hidden code discovered in the operating system suggests that Fitbit will be one of the first apps that can make use of it.
Fitbit can already add data and pull data from Health Connect, so it makes sense that support for medical records would be added when available – giving Fitbit an even more comprehensive look at your health profile.
Making a connection
Google is keen to emphasize that Health Connect goes to great lengths to keep your data secure and private: you get full control over which apps can access which bits of data, from the number of steps banked this week to how much you slept last night.
The advantage of having a central repository for all this information is that you can combine data from different apps together – maybe use a Fitbit tracker to monitor sleep, for example, and a Pixel Watch to count steps.
It also means you don’t have to lose all of your carefully compiled health and fitness data if you decide to move to another app. However, it does depend on app developers signing up – and not all of the big names are on board yet (Withings and Polar are, but Garmin and Strava aren’t, for example).
We should know more when Android 16 is finally finished and being pushed out to smartphones. It looks as though that will be around the start of June, ahead of some brand new Google Pixel 10 smartphones in the weeks following.