Health Sync App btw Samsung Health and Google Fit - Caveats

Betatesters
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There’s a wonderful little app in the Play Store called “Health Sync.” I was finally able to Sync my Pebble Health steps to Samsung Health via Google Fit. Exactly. Friends again! BUT . . . sleep.

It syncs sleep alright, it syncs every doggone thing Google Fit thinks is sleep from my watch. Which means if I’m sitting in a semi-reclined position, boom! “Nap!” Or so it thinks. Plus, it was actually doubling the sleeps! (Samsung Sync in SaA will fix that.)

I heartily recommend this great little app, but if you’re directly sycning your sleep from SaA to S-Health, uncheck “sleep” or your stats will be wrong, or at least your stats won’t reflect your nightly sleep sessions.

As for the extra graphs, some overlap, some are actual naps, most are not. And sometimes, it seems to pick up “sleep” when I am shown walking during the day.

So, if you want to use all the data in Samsung Health, uncheck “sleep” in the Health Sync app. If ever you want all those phantom graphs, they are saved in Google Fit and you can re-sync it all anytime.

(Also, only check “activities” if you only track your workouts from inside Google Fit, with Google Fit. Or it will double up like crazy because Samsung Health is doing the same thing in pulling data from workout apps, or tracking workouts itself.)

Again, terrific app, highly recommended. But be careful with “sleep.”

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Where do the naps originate? Pebble to Fit to S Health?

I use Health Sync, have all the checkmarks and haven’t seen this issue with my Active2.

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Interesting, yes. Pebble to Fit to Samsung Health, but night sleeps are fixed when you do a “Samsung Health Sync” from inside Sleep As Android, so that’s not a problem. The problem was naps. They told me it shouldn’t double. They originate on my Pebble, which is very sleep aggressive if you’re apparently lying down or reclined and still, especially during the day. I work with the chair reclined quite a bit, and my laptop on a lap desk. It helps with back problems not to work at or near a 90-degree angle. So, this information is stored inside Google Fit. And if I check “sleep” on Health Sync or SaA, it pulls in everything, including the automatic nap detection from Pebble Health with “Sleep” checked there. As I recall, while it also doubled my Pebble Health night sleeps, hitting "Samsung Health Sync in SaA immediately fixes that.

I keep “sleep better” checked on Pebble Health because it does detect real, genuine naps, too, and with precision. But if you let any other third party app have access to pull in Google Fit sleep, it will send across an avalanche of these false positive naps. Health Sync might well have fixed that. Also, it works with Fitbit and I think other fitness hubs as well. It’s really a wonderful little app! But if you choose Samsung Health in Sleep As Android, there’s really no need for anything else. I just add real naps to SaA when I see them. (And planned naps in SaA work very well when you choose binaural beats and the audio that really works for you. “Sleep Pill” in the radio section is amazing; it knocks you out, which is important so as not to waste a nap period when you have important things to get done.)

It apparently depends upon how agressive your wearable is regarding auto-sleep detection. Pebble Health is extremely aggressive, and even though the Rebble crew rewrote all the code, they are not making improvements at this time. Now it’s in Google’s hands, after the Fitbit buyout. So every meditation session gets picked up as “sleep” as in a nap - by Pebble Health, which works too well sometimes. :wink: One of the two hubs accurately detects meditation from a variety of linked up third-party apps, too. I forget which hub, but I think it’s Google Fit! So that caused a weird overlap, too.

Thanks. Now I know it’s likely based on which wearable you use, and if it detects naps and how it does that. Or . . . Health Sync maybe fixed it! I will try it again.

Happy Holidays.
Best,
Robin
P.S. – Sounds like a great watch from the reviews and your experience, but then I looked at the battery life. I have had this Pebble on without a charge since about midnight Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day, and overnight into today, and I am at 70%. Seriously! (Pebble only drops in “10%” jumps, so it could be 70 to 79%, but I am guessing 70%.) And I will now charge it. In 5 to 10 minutes, tops, it’ll be 100% again. So that’s the number one thing. And the apps. Pebble has so many third party apps that I do not want to lose! Just brilliant little apps. The only thing I would want is GPS so as to leave the phone behind. It does pick up walking or running, exact time, steps and distance, but it can’t map it without the phone on you. So I throw the data into Map My Fitness, using pin drops to trace the route, and it’s all there. I am rarely without my phone, anyway, but if so, you get the vital stats delivered in workout form. And I have the Kardia ECG tester on my phone case, so I can take my ECG almost anytime. I do BTLE HR with an armband that lasts 24 hours, or 3 sleeps. So, I am not ready to ditch my 3 Pebble Times anytime soon. All three colors, with wraps, straps and buckles, all customized.

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UPDATE: If you are using it to transfer steps from Google Fit to Samsung Health, this wonderful little app got busted by Samsung. After June 30, this data transfer will be stopped.

It will sync sleep (and everything else) from Samsung Health to Google Fit’s storehouse of fitness data that are not displayed. That’s important because directly syncing with Google Fit through SaA will import EVERYTHING your wearable device thinks is “sleep,” including meditation sessions and sometimes just reclining while working or laying about in bed very much awake on a Sunday morning. I allow Pebble Health to catch naps, which it does, but it uploads EVERYTHING to Google Fit and thus to Sleep As Android, so being able to have a one-way sleep sync to Google Fit gives me control over the “phantom graphs.”

Samsung Health will no longer accept steps from my non-Samsung wearable directly or indirectly. They want to force you to buy one of their wearables. I have no need for that. I guess I will lose my steps as Samsung Health won’t take steps from ANY third party apps, which means you’re either tied to your phone and almost always get an undercount because you do usually charge your phone once during the day while your body is phoneless. So wrong of them to stop them! Doggone it.

Looks like I’m sticking with Google Fit despite the lack of data display. (Why is that? It’s our health data. Why can’t we see it?)

No third-party app will be allowed to send step data to Samsung Health. Extortionary policy, imho. Those with health issues need all this data displayed in one place.

But as I said, for sleep from Sleep As Android, Health Sync still gives you more options. So, that’s good. Maybe Google Fit will someday show everything else that it stores. Because it does store it all. With Samsung Health, you could see what Google Fit stores. But for steps? Not after June 30.

Just wanted to give you a heads up. Samsung is trying to arm twist you into paying for a Samsung device. (They used to have a little pedometer “Charm” clip-on device mainly for steps. But that’s gone. They should make that again for about $30. That would be fair.)

Carry on.

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UPDATE: Samsung Health is picking up steps directly from both Pebble Health and what they call “your phone,” and my phone is getting the steps from Google Fit! So actually it overcounts a bit. No problem. They stopped accepting the sync because they now have it covered. Don’t ask me how, but it’s picking up more steps than Google Fit or Pebble Health alone.

This is not to say that Health Sync is no longer a great syncing app; it is! It tends to provide order to all the different pieces of data going hither and thither, plus it gives you total control. They have added Fitbit devices. (Which owns Pebble’s intellectual property, and which has all been gobbled up by Google now.)

I still recommend it.

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No more steps. But it does keep everything else sync’d nicely, including Sleep As Android.

Still recommended.