Strava’s API debacle highlights the messiness of health knowledge

A number of days in the past, Strava upset its customers over some restrictive API adjustments. It may appear 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 employ their watches for working and power coaching. Then, you choose up a Peloton bike for indoor biking. Effectively, Garmin gadgets aren’t suitable with Peloton bikes as a result of the 2 corporations haven’t struck a direct take care of each other for knowledge sharing. So, to get your coronary heart charge on the Peloton bike, you purchase a chest strap. And then you definately resolve 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 custom-made plan.

The dilemma is now you’ve gotten 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 variety of the way 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 lately, it got here up once I reviewed a Mobvoi linked desk treadmill. I didn’t like its native app, however making an attempt 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 fact is many smaller health apps and wearable makers don’t have the sources to strike up direct knowledge integrations with the 1000’s 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 below the brand new API phrases.

Take a third-party platform like VeloViewer. The entire thought behind VeloViewer is to provide extra in-depth insights into Strava knowledge, together with 3D maps, charts, yearly exercise recaps, and leaderboards. It is a nice possibility for folk who need extra information 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 — lots 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 problem, but it surely doesn’t change the truth that Strava holds all of the playing cards.

Admittedly, this can be a area of interest drawback. Most individuals use one or possibly two health apps with their smartwatch, and this isn’t actually a problem. 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 fastidiously crafted system.