Strava’s API debacle highlights the messiness of health knowledge

A couple of days in the past, Strava upset its customers over some restrictive API adjustments. It might sound odd for one app’s customers to fume over an API, however on the coronary heart of the matter is the inherent messiness of health knowledge.

Right here’s a typical situation. Say you’re all in on Garmin’s platform. You utilize their watches for operating and power coaching. Then, you decide up a Peloton bike for indoor biking. Effectively, Garmin gadgets aren’t suitable with Peloton bikes as a result of the 2 firms haven’t struck a direct cope with each other for knowledge sharing. So, to get your coronary heart fee on the Peloton bike, you purchase a chest strap. And then you definately determine to coach for a race, so that you join a type of digital teaching platforms — the sort the place a private coach evaluations your exercises and builds you a personalized plan.

The dilemma is now you’ve got three separate apps the place your exercise historical past is saved, with three separate interfaces — and none of them with the entire image of your coaching.

There are a selection of how you might consolidate that knowledge, however on this situation, the only is to add all of your exercises into Strava after which import all that Strava knowledge into the teaching app.

This sort of situation has come up dozens of occasions all through my wearables testing. Most not too long ago, it got here up after I reviewed a Mobvoi linked desk treadmill. I didn’t like its native app, however attempting to get the info into my most popular apps was a nightmare. On the finish of the day, it was best for me to undergo Strava.

The truth is many smaller health apps and wearable makers don’t have the sources to strike up direct knowledge integrations with the hundreds of different health apps and gadgets available on the market. It’s a lot simpler for everybody to make use of Strava’s API and name it a day. And in contrast to Apple’s HealthKit API or Google’s Well being Join, Strava is platform-agnostic.

The place issues get actually murky is third-party health platforms that extrapolate their very own insights from Strava knowledge — a no-no underneath the brand new API phrases.

Take a third-party platform like VeloViewer. The entire thought behind VeloViewer is to offer extra in-depth insights into Strava knowledge, together with 3D maps, charts, yearly exercise recaps, and leaderboards. This can be a nice possibility for people who need extra data than what’s natively out there in Strava, however the brand new API adjustments break most of the aforementioned options. As you may think, VeloViewer customers — a lot of whom say they solely pay a Strava subscription to make use of VeloViewer — are pissed. VeloViewer has since launched a press release saying it’s working with Strava to resolve the difficulty, nevertheless it doesn’t change the truth that Strava holds all of the playing cards.

Admittedly, it is a area of interest downside. Most individuals use one or perhaps two health apps with their smartwatch, and this isn’t actually a difficulty. However for these of us who need the liberty of utilizing a number of gadgets and apps throughout varied platforms? It’s a sobering reminder that it solely takes Strava altering the foundations to interrupt a rigorously crafted system.