As wearable technology becomes increasingly popular, health and wellness app owners are doing everything they can to ensure that everyone is able to monitor their wellbeing and track their fitness progress in the most convenient way.

If that’s your goal, then you need to integrate HealthKit into your app. Keep reading to learn more about HealthKit and how it can help you turn every iPhone into a health platform.

What is HealthKit?

In order to fully explain what HealthKit is, we must talk about the Health app. In a nutshell, Health is Apple’s default app that collects health- and fitness-related information from your iPhone, Apple Watch, and third-party apps to quantify data about you then present it in a concise, secure dashboard.

HealthKit is the developer framework behind Health that allows it to communicate with compatible apps and seamlessly share your data with one another. For example, if a user uses two separate apps to monitor their weight and to keep track of their calorie intake, HealthKit would let one app exchange the data it’s gathered with the other to offer more well-rounded insight into the user’s state of health.

You can find more information about HealthKit on Apple’s official website.

What information can HealthKit collect?

HealthKt can collect data on the following indicators of the user’s lifestyle:

1. Activity: The physical activity of the user, such as step count.
2. Mindfulness: How much time the user spends practicing mindfulness
3. Sleep: The user’s sleep data, from the duration to the average time in bed.
4. Nutrition: Such as the number of calories consumed by the user.
5. Other important data: Including heartbeat rate and body statistics.

Why should you integrate your app with HealthKit?

There are thousands of health and wellness apps available on the App Store, and your users expect to be able to keep their data in a standardised format. As it allows them to transfer their data across different apps, and enjoy the benefits each app has to offer and make better-informed health choices.

And HealthKit is the answer.

No doubt, being able to easily track their lifestyle improves the user experience and increases the desire to use your app – after all, isn’t that our end goal?

How can HealthKit be used for health and wellness app development?

There are many ways to use HealthKit in your health and wellness app: Gym clubs can develop fitness apps to keep their clients on track, anxiety apps can add a new feature to make sure their users rest well, and so on.

Thanks to HealthKit, we were able to build Deliciously Ella’s wellness tool ‘my tracker’, a holistic activity tracker that’s designed to help users incorporate personalised wellness plans into their daily lives.

‘my tracker’ allows users to log and track information on all aspects of their wellness routine – from their exercise and mindfulness practices to their calorie and water consumption – every step of the way to achieving their goals.

What about data security?

It’s understandable for app owners to consider the security of their users’ data. Luckily, you’ll be glad to hear that HealthKit requires that any medical- and fitness-tracking app that interacts with its repository has its own privacy policy to safeguard the user’s data. Plus HealthKit apps may not use the API or any information obtained through it “for any purpose other than providing health and/or fitness services.”

Another benefit of HealthKit is that it only works on iPhones, which boasts many security features like Face and Touch ID, which means only the user can access their data.

Is HealthKit the perfect fit for your wellness app?

If so, we want to hear from you! Speak to a member of our team via hello@digitalworkroom.co.uk.