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Comment by Fogest | Hacker News Reader

It is meant to aggregate data from other fitness apps. They just need to integrate with Google Fit

>"No need to check one app to see your weight and another to review a run"

Except the blog post doesn't allude to anything more than what's already present. I can already input weight and run time and it looks like it tracks heartbeat.

Maybe the phone app has problems loading widgets with the webservice currently being flakey.

> "You can also connect your favorite fitness devices and apps like Strava, Withings, Runtastic, Runkeeper and Noom Coach to Google Fit and we’ll surface all of the relevant data in one spot, giving you a clear and complete view of your fitness. No need to check one app to see your weight and another to review a run – with Google Fit, that data will all be surfaced in one, simple place."

Yes, I clearly read that line as I pulled a quote directly from it. If you read the quote they don't expand beyond what is already available in the app.

If I track a 2 mile 20 minute run with another app, Google Fit (so far) only exposes the data as "Ran 20 minutes" completely eliminating the useful information. And if they have a hidden feature that does track distance as well, why isn't that exposed to me to manually enter?

The backend platform doesn't seem to have a standard data type for distance (but can track both time and average speed, which, if the other app recorded them, presumably the app, or another front-end for the Fit backend, could surface as distance.) [1]

[1] https://developers.google.com/fit/android/data-types or https://developers.google.com/fit/rest/v1/data-types

Yes, there is com.google.distance.delta, the "distance covered since the last reading" (in meters). The platform also has a built-in stream of consolidated and cleaned up distance data points (without jumps due to a poor GPS signal etc).

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