If you thought the Health app was just another pointless program, you should definitely reconsider your views. Unlike the Stocks, Compass or Tips applications, the program is one of the few that cannot be uninstalled. Just tune Health properly and it becomes a powerful tool for maintaining or getting fit.
The Health app meets the most demanding health and fitness needs. So, based on the HealthKit API, it provides collection of hours Apple Watch data about your daily activity, heart rate and workouts completed.
However, the Health app is more than just a data warehouse. With every iOS update, Apple improves the program. Still think Health is wasting your device's memory? We advise you to look at the application from a different angle! Especially if you own an Apple Watch. You will certainly appreciate the useful and well-presented content of the application, which can help you implement your personal fitness plan.
Long journey of Health app for iPhone
The "Health" program was born very modestly and has come a long way of development. Released in 2014 as part of iOS 8, the app was quite simple and skillful only at presenting user health data in boring statistics format. In order to find useful information, one had to scroll through a number of characteristics unknown to most users, such as the wick expiratory flow rate or the perfusion index. The app contained several unfinished (simplified at best) diagrams.
application "Health" in iOS 11 is a bird of a completely different flight. It provides a convenient, at a glance, clear overview of key statistics about your health in the Today tab. Interactive charts let you evaluate data visually. Customize the display of your favorite statistics. For example, you can even display maps of your training routes.
Tab "Today" has such a strange name because it displays not only the information of the current day. Here you can view graphs of your activity by day, week, month and even year. Apple has added so many features to the app that it's easy to get confused about them. So just remember: double-clicking on the Today tab always displays information for the current day.
Health and Activity Apps: What's the Difference?
If you are using Apple Watch, the app Activity is automatically installed on your iPhone. Outwardly, the Health and Activity programs look very similar, but they have one important difference: Activity displays only the data received by the Apple Watch, while Health processes all information about the user's health and activity.
This means that when you register a workout on Apple Watch, you will see it displayed in both apps. However, any activity or workout registered to the iPhone will only appear in the app "Health". It is "Health" that is the storage of your medical data (blood type, presence / absence of allergies, etc.).
I would like to believe that with the release of iOS 12 Apple will present us with a unified version of the applications " Health ”and“ Activity ”to help eliminate confusing duplication.
How to fill the application "Health" useful statistics
As old as the world, a proverb from the world of fitness, which says “ What you put in is what you get ”is also true for the“ Health ”application. It will be useful to you exactly to the extent that you enter into it exactly the data you need.
Great news for Apple Watch owners - most likely, you are already looking at a lot of useful statistics. Four built-in Apple Watch apps automatically add your information to Health: Activity, Workout, Heart Rate, and Breathing.
To make sure your settings are correct, launch the Watch app on your iPhone and check that the heart rate and fitness trackers are active. Also, make sure to turn on the activity tracker. If you haven't already, launch the Activity app on your Apple Watch and follow the standard instructions.
If you don't have an Apple Watch, don't despair either. The iPhone's built-in coprocessor (for iPhone 5s and later) collects information about your activity when you are on the move and your phone is in your pocket or wallet. You may find that the device has already counted the number of steps, the time spent standing, and even the number of stairs climbed (the latter function works on devices iPhone 6 and newer, as it uses the barometer built into the device).
The best part is that such statistics - this is only a small part in comparison with all the possibilities of the "Health" program. You only need to set the application settings correctly.
Collect nutrition and sleep data from third-party apps with HealthKit
When you go to the "Medical Data" tab, you will see four large squares with the most popular types of data processed by the "Health" application: "Activity", "Mindfulness", "Nutrition", "Sleep".
If you have an Apple Watch, the Activity and Mindfulness categories are well served by the built-in Apple apps. (For example, in order to record minutes of "mindfulness", you can use the stock application "Breathing".) However, for the categories "Food" and "Sleep" the current picture is such that you will need to use third-party applications to fully load data.
In order for you to be able to choose the programs to your liking, the Health application is provided with handy recommendations. Just click on one of the squares and you will see a list of applications that collect a certain kind of data. Links to download them in App Store.
For example, the popular Sleep Cycle app is good for tracking sleep on the iPhone, or the Pillow app for Apple Watch.
Update data using third-party devices
If you're serious about tracking your health data, then the sensors built into your iPhone and Apple Watch may not be good enough. For such a case, there are many special gadgets that are compatible with the Health application.
Apple recently bought out Beddit, a company that makes a sleep tracker that you can place under your sheets in your bed. Not cheap ($ 149) , but with comfort, because you do not have to sleep with a watch on your hand.
When it comes to heart rate tracking, the optical sensors on Apple Watch are not accurate enough. For example, serious athletes prefer Bluetooth chest heart rate sensors from Polar and others. These are electrode sensors that are much more reliable than optical ones.
Also noteworthy are bathroom scales with Wi-Fi interface. You can manually enter your weight in the Health app, but doing this on a regular basis can get quite hassle. To automate the process, for example, the Nokia Body Composition Wi-Fi Scale smart scales are useful. By collecting data from the gadget, "Health" will be able to draw up a graph of your weight change. The balance can also provide an estimate of body fat percentage, but the accuracy of such measurements is not always satisfactory.
Conflict of information received from different sources? Prioritizing data sources will help
As you start using all the new applications for recording health and fitness data, data duplication and data conflicts arise. For example, if you log a workout on iPhone without removing your Apple Watch, both devices will record the number of calories you burned during the activity. If Health reads this data twice, you will see incorrect information as a result.
To solve this problem, Apple compares the date, time and duration of recorded activities. If they match, then the data from one source is ignored, and from the other, it is uploaded to the Health application. By default, data coming from the Apple Watch takes precedence, but you can customize the prioritization yourself. To do this, simply select the desired data type (for example, "Steps"). Now click " Data sources and access"And then select the option" Edit»In the upper right corner of the screen. Now you can change the order of an item in the list of data sources by simply dragging it up and down. To do this, hold down the icon with the image of three gray stripes located to the right of the program name. The top sources in the list take precedence over those below. All results will be displayed, but in the event of a conflict of one type of data, only the source with the highest priority will be taken into account when compiling statistics.
Third Party Applications: Access Control Settings
In the Sources tab, you can see a list of all third-party programs for which the user has approved access to the Health app. Even if you have other health and fitness apps installed on your iPhone, they will never appear in the list unless you've given them access to your Health app data.
Most third-party programs that integrate with the Health app ask for permission on first launch. However, some work differently, requesting access to certain types of information only when you use functions associated with that data.
You can revoke the application's access to the data of the Health program in the Sources tab. However, you should think carefully before taking such an action. If you revoke access, the program will not receive a notification, so the next time you use it, it will not even be able to warn you about this, which no longer records your health and fitness data.
Favorite Settings: Turn Health into Your Personal Fitness Dashboard
Customize the Today tab by adding specific types of metrics to your favorites category. To do this, select the type of data that you want to display in the "Today" tab, and make sure the "Favorite" radio button is active.
With your favorite settings, you can turn Health into a personal dashboard that matches your fitness goals exactly. As an example, we will show you what data will be useful to you in cases if you are going to lose weight, do bodybuilding or run a marathon:
Favorites for those wishing to lose weight
If you want to reduce your weight, this usually means wanting to reduce body fat. In this case, it makes sense to make weight and fat as the chosen indicators. In order to lose weight, you will need to reduce the number of calories consumed and increase the number of calories at the same time, therefore the indicators "Energy value" and "Energy of activity" also fall into the favorites list.
- Body fat percentage
- Energy value
- Energy of activity
"Favorites" for bodybuilders
Bodybuilders want to gain weight, but by building muscle, not fat. Therefore, “Weight” and “Lean Body Mass” are sent to the favorites list. The bodybuilder also pays attention to the ratio of macronutrients (proteins, fats, carbohydrates) in his diet, so they should also be included in the favorites. If the bodybuilder is not eating, it usually means that he is working out in the gym, so "Workout" becomes another item on the list.
- Lean body mass
- Protein
- Carbohydrates
- Total fat
- Workouts
Favorites for marathon runners
If you are preparing to run a marathon, then one of the most important aspects of your plan should be volume, because you will need to run many kilometers. Therefore, we add such indicators as "Training" and "Distance of walking and running" to the list of favorites. With these activities, you will also need to track your calories to make sure you are consuming enough. Finally, add a Resting Heart Rate metric to track your overall cardiovascular fitness level (the lower your resting heart rate, the higher the level usually).
- Workouts
- Distance of walking and running
- Energy of activity
- Energy value
- Resting pulse
Exporting health data
Health app is not only a data import tool. You can also export data from there using HealthKit.
Diet apps (Lose It !, MyFitnessPal and others) calculate your active calories so they can use that data to adjust your daily intake.
Unfortunately, not all fitness programs today get exercise data from the Health app. The Strava app, however, promises to add such an option soon.
It is also possible to export the entire infobase of the application. To do this, go to your profile in "Health" (the silhouette icon located in the upper right corner of the screen on the "Today" tab) and click "Export medical data".
Plan your fitness with the Apple Health app
The Health app, which brings together many disparate elements, can provide you with a complete overview of your fitness history with all the important statistics displayed in one simple dashboard. In addition, thanks to devices such as the Apple Watch, automatic loading the data you need is very easy.
If you are serious about getting into good shape, then Health's constant real-time feedback will serve you well on your way to your goal. Well, buried the program in the Junk folder? Maybe now is the time to get it out of there and turn your attention.
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Not all iPhone owners know that, starting with the 5S model, an additional coprocessor has been built into the smartphone. One of its functions is to measure the number of steps taken by the owner of the phone.
In fact, the iPhone counts your steps by default, it's just that the data is not visible anywhere. To see them, you need to go to "Settings" -\u003e "Privacy" -\u003e "Movement and Fitness" and activate "Fitness Tracking" there:
How to Track Step Count on iPhone
You can use the regular program "Health", but for me, it is not very convenient and informative. I recommend installing Pedometer, which is free and available in the App Store.
In the application, you can set a goal and see statistics for each day, both steps and an approximate distance in kilometers are shown:
Also, "Pedometer" is able to show the number of steps for the current day right on its icon. It's very convenient - you don't even need to open the application:
If you still have questions - we are always happy to help you!
Walking is a great way to improve your health and can be used as a fitness activity for those who are contraindicated in other types of physical activity. For example, those who are struggling with excess weight or are undergoing a rehabilitation period after surgery. But, as you know, regularity and a gradual increase in intensity are important in any exercise. The measure for walking in this case is the distance covered or the number of steps taken.
But counting the steps in your head is quite tedious, and it is very easy to lose count, especially when there are several hundred of them. Therefore, separate devices were invented - pedometers that keep track of steps without human intervention.
They received further development with the transition of smartphones to the modern level of hardware filling. It turned out that any modern smartphone, including the iPhone, can replace many devices. The pedometer was no exception.
Those who are used not only to use modern gadgets, but also show some degree of curiosity, are interested in the question of how the iPhone counts the steps taken?
In fact, everything is very simple. As mentioned above, hardware allows for online monitoring of the state of the device and physical impacts on it. Further, with the help of appropriate software, process the received data and, on their basis, provide visual graphic information on the display.
Let's see how this works in the case of measuring the number of steps taken. Each iPhone is equipped with some set of sensors. Namely: a three-axis gyroscope, an accelerometer, a distance sensor, a light sensor and a fingerprint sensor. It turned out that the accelerometer is the best suited for measuring the number of steps, a sensor whose principle of operation has already been used in some individual pedometers.
The accelerometer in smartphones, together with a gyroscope, is used to detect accelerations, turns in space, shakes, etc. These functions were originally required in 3D games to control them without using a joystick. But they have found application in other tasks with the help of the appropriate software. Including they are used in pedometer programs.
Biomechanical phases of human walking include the alternation of phases of support and limb transfer. These phases are characterized by dynamic jolts that impart periodic accelerations to the center of mass of the human body, corresponding to the periodicity of the step, which is monitored by the accelerometer in the iPhone. Further, the software only has to keep track of incoming signals and process them in accordance with the embedded algorithms.
How accurate is my iPhone step counting?
By definition, any measurement cannot be absolutely accurate, and even more so, measurements based on indirect data. Of course, not all of your steps will be accurately counted. Some other movements, such as jumping, can be perceived as a step.
Measurement accuracy is also affected by the way you wear your smartphone. If it is rigidly fixed to the body, then the accuracy will be higher than when the device has a large degree of freedom to move in your pocket or bag. In the latter case, its inertial swing can be counted as your steps.
But overall, inaccurate steps are clearly not something to worry about. The error in any case will be no more than a few percent.
What programs are needed to count steps
Starting with iOS 8, the operating system includes a default application called Healthwhich calculates the walking distance and the number of steps taken. It makes sense to install third-party applications only if you want to get some kind of advanced statistical information, for example, counting calories burned. The AppStore has the widest selection of walking and running apps.
Someone "Pedometer"seems like a useless toy, but this is what has always been lacking. I remember how, with a tenacity worthy of a better application, I tried to count the number of steps from the railway station to the house, but invariably got lost somewhere at the end of the second thousand.
There. For objectivity, I decided to measure the same distance with two pedometers: from point A to point B, and back - from B to A.
Free version the Pedometer application, in addition to the number of steps, tracks time, distance, speed, average speed and burned calories. In addition, on the screen you can observe how one of five diagrams changes over time: km / h, min / km, step / min, bpm, kcal / min. Thanks to the Pedometer, I learned a lot of useless numbers, for example, that from the corner of the Avenue business center to the Lopukhinsky Garden there are 460 steps and 330 meters, at the exit from the garden they turn into 1010 steps and 723 meters (as well as 35 kcal).
In addition, it turned out that with a normal brisk step, I develop a speed of 5.1 km / h, and a fast-fast one - 5.7 km / h. So if you strain, puff and sweat for an hour, you will be able to win some miserable 600 meters. Small doubts about the reliability of the data crept in only because even if I tried to walk with a quick, quick, quick step, the figure on the screen remained the same - 5.7. Only later, on a speed diagram that resembled a saw, I saw that at times the saw teeth reached 6.2 km / h.
Apparently one of the two lied, especially when stopping at an intersection, only after 5-10-15 seconds of motionless waiting, the digital speed reluctantly began to decrease from 4.6 km / h. Deciding to believe "geometry with algebra", I counted out 50 steps to myself and looked at the screen: the gadget counted 51 during this time. Normal. By the way, constant glancing at the screen should be recognized as useful: perhaps this is akin to the effect that an individual who is eager to lose weight achieves, who gets on the scales 10 times a day. After that, no piece will go into your mouth. So here, too, you involuntarily increase your speed. As a result, the path that I usually cover in 40-50 minutes, thanks to the pedometer, was covered in 35 kopecks. The average speed was 5 km / h, the distance was 2994 meters, and the number of kilocalories was 143. One boiled egg contains 150 kcal, and the Russian big mac (the calorie content of a sandwich varies greatly depending on the country) and 495 kcal. It turns out that in order to spend just one Big Mac you need to walk almost 10 km!
Back. But all these results had to be recognized as preliminary, which had to be compared with the readings of the English-language Passometer.
The surprises began immediately after the start. No matter how I increased my stride speed, the iPhone speedometer still displayed a paltry 2.31 km / h.
Having decided to test the application in a tried and tested manual way, I counted 50 steps, Passometer noticed only 21 of them. By the way, when the screen was turned off, the application immediately paused the counting of steps! What the heck!? A worthless thing !? The Russian-speaking "Pedometer" seemed to be winning in all respects. It was possible to stop the experiment at the very beginning.
At that moment, I suggested: what would happen if you put the iPhone, which I had been holding in my hand all the time, into my pocket? The speed began to grow and at times reached 6.02 (here the counting is carried out to hundredths!) Km / h, and 50 of my "oral" steps were counted by the application as 53. It is worth noting that the instructions for the application nowhere indicate that the iPhone is in the measurement time should be kept in some special way so that the results are not distorted.
As a result, despite the incomprehensibility with the calculations at the beginning of the distance, the finish turned out to be 3238 meters, 3925 steps and 164.39 kcal. This means that the length of my stride increased by 10 cm, the number of calories spent - by 50 ml of kefir, and only the average speed remained unchanged. 0.01 km / h of the difference does not count.
PS Measurement of the distance with the help of the "Yandex" ruler showed that there is at least 3.4 km in it. Someone is still lying ...
Select the fragment with the error text and press Ctrl + Enter
Apple didn't talk about it, but the iPhone's built-in pedometer needs calibration.
For this we need any free sports program. I recommend Runtastic or Runkeeper.
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Why did the problem suddenly surface: while walking with a friend around the city, he boasted to me that he had already walked for today 27,000 steps (or 20 km)... I looked at my iPhone and was surprised because my result was 18,000 steps (or 11 km).
We were together all day and he could not go into such a gap, unless he got up early in the morning and secretly began to run, which was not observed.
I asked him if the iPhone data matched the readings of the activity trackers or sports programs? - to which the friend replied that he had never used any trackers.
This is how the theory arose about the need to calibrate the iPhone.
Having installed Runtastic on his phone, I went to the iPhone settings at Privacy → Geolocation services → scrolling down to System services → turn on Calibration of motion accounting (sufficient, but not necessary condition - you need to launch the software).
Next, we launch the sports software and choose the Walking workout. The GPS icon should appear in the upper right corner. We walk at a measured pace of at least two kilometers. After that, the built-in iPhone pedometer will become more accurate, and the Health application will display real activity indicators. To improve accuracy, it is desirable to go the same way back faster.
After calibration, the data of the two iPhones are equal to plus or minus the error.
Owners of Apple Watch do not need to install anything additionally, because the watch already contains the necessary workout and is called stroll.
