What you need to know
- Developers using Google Fit APIs must transition to Health Connect by June 30, 2025.
- Google is no longer accepting new signups for Google Fit API access and is urging developers to switch to Health Connect.
- The deprecation has raised concerns among developers, particularly because there is no direct replacement for the Goals API, which is used to set daily activity goals.
Apps that track your fitness with Google Fit will need to be updated by next summer as Google moves to a new system called Health Connect.
With the launch of Health Connect in 2022, Google began phasing out Fit’s developer APIs. Google Fit used to be the primary health platform until the company began transitioning to Health Connect, also known as the Android Health platform.
Google announced in a blog post that it is giving developers until June 30, 2025 to switch to Health Connect (via 9to5Google). The Google Fit APIs, including the REST API, will be available by that date “to give developers sufficient time to migrate to Android Health.”
This means that Google will no longer accept new signups for API access. Fitness and exercise apps that previously relied on Google Fit must now switch to Health Connect before the deadline.
Google’s move to phase out the Fit APIs has raised concerns among developers. Although Google has provided a transition guide, it has not introduced a replacement for the Goals API, which allows users to set daily goals for steps and heart points.
Google I/O is just around the corner (starts May 14th) and health is a hot topic. As the company retires the Google Fit APIs in favor of Health Connect, we can definitely expect to hear more about how it envisions the future of health and fitness across its ecosystem of devices and apps.
However, it is unclear what will happen next with the Google Fit app itself on Android, Wear OS and iOS. For now, the apps on these platforms appear to continue to function as activity trackers and data storage.
Interestingly, the Google Fit app hasn’t seen any significant updates recently. The last major update was just the addition of Health Connect support in 2022. This adds to the mystery surrounding the app’s future.
With the Google Fit APIs going away and the Fitbit app being the default health app on Google’s Pixel Watch, it looks like Google is looking at Fitbit as its main health tracking player. A single, unified system through Fitbit would definitely simplify things for the tech giant.