Samsung Health to remove connected services from 1 September

After expanding its reach to third-party apps late last year, Samsung Health is now set to rid integration with connected services, as well as devices tracking UV, temperature, and humidity.

The app, which acts as Samsung's health and wellness hub for data collected through its wearables, is currently stating that the changes will hit on 1 September. That means users will no longer be able to sync over the data collected on a Samsung Gear smartwatch or fitness tracker (or, soon, Galaxy Watch) to the likes of Fitbit, Under Armour, Microsoft Health and Runkeeper.

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The benefits of this, of course, were that you could keep your existing third-party accounts active and blend them nicely with a Samsung device that handles the tracking. For example, if you went on a run with the Gear Fit2 Pro, the data would automatically port over to Samsung Health, but you also had the option to send it across to Runkeeper and more apps, which often also have web equivalents Samsung Health does not.

However, despite the wide-ranging cull, there is one outlier that will still have integration with Samsung Health - Strava. It's not clear why users will still be able to sync as normal from Health to the popular fitness app, but it is good news for those who have just joined the company's new subscription plan, Strava Summit, and like to send things from their Samsung wearable.

But other than that, the disintegration of Samsung Health is a bit of a disappointing one. On one hand, it makes sense that Samsung wants to exercise an element of independence, with the Galaxy Watch set to introduce new exercise and wellness features upon launch, but there will likely be some considerable gaps left unfilled - especially in the areas of hydration, UV and temperature monitoring.

Source: ZDNet