I’ve been progressively tracking more health and lifestyle metrics. I wanted a single place where I could track my data to observe changes over time.

I found that there was no service available to do this. Thus spawned a side-project: the Dashboard [1].

To my surprise, getting access to health data is not easy.

Applications and devices either have:

• No means of getting data.
• Data export to a file.
• An inaccessible API, for one reason or another.
• A mobile SDK (Apple).
• An API ⭐️
• An API with 0Auth ⭐️⭐️
• Webhooks to stream data as it is collected ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Two services, Terra and Vital, provide a unified API for many health data services, but their cheapest pricing tier is roughly 300 USD per month, making them non-starters for something of this scale. They also lack support for lifting data (reps, sets, weights), which I need.

I learned that this trend of devices and wearables not providing easy access to the data they collect is pervasive. You can buy something, a ring, a watch, or a scale, and have no free means of programmatically exporting the data that it collects.

In fact, as far as I can tell, there are *no (zero) *scales available that allow you to access collected data in a programmatic way [2].

The result: a combination of automated and partially automated hacks to access data from a variety of sources.

• Calories & Supplements: Fast Calorie [3] → Export to a file → Apple shortcut → my API
• Runs: Strava API + Garmin using Garth.
• Weight: Scale → Apple Health → Health Auto Export → my API
• Gym: Hevy API :)

More to come.

Baring calories [4], in a world with open data access from applications and devices, all health data could be streamed into something like a dashboard without any manual intervention.

From this data, insights for improving one’s lifestyle and health could be derived. Most people know what does and what does not work for them based on feelings and intuition. With data, this analysis becomes empirical and automatic. A diverse and longitudinal corpus dataset of health metrics enables the development of the rich health applications of tomorrow, something I believe individuals stand to hugely benefit from.

How do we get from here to there?

Data collected from sources (watches, apps, rings, mattresses, etc.) is not (easily) accessible to individuals and or third-party developers.

Like Terra and Vital, one approach to addressing the problem is to do work downstream from the data sources. That is, for each data source find some way to get data from it and then expose to developers a much kinder way to access the data.

For example, I (an individual developer) cannot directly access data from my Renpho smart scale. But, using Vital, I can access the data (provided I pay Vital for their services).

Downstream of the source (the Renpho smart scale), a solution was developed that makes accessing data easier.

The direct approach is to make new data sources. Instead of trying to pull data from something that doesn’t want to give it up, make data sources that do make data freely accessible.

For example: making a scale or watch or mobile app that can be set up to automatically upload your data.

This requires significantly more work but is a surefire way to address the problem.

When your finances are in shambles, a standard piece of advice is to track your spending because it will give you insights into how you could better manage your capital [5].

Health Observability is the longitudinal tracking of metrics pertaining to physical, mental, and metabolic health.

Everyone’s had their off days. Health Observability, paired with smart technologies, will enable you to determine what leads to good days and what leads to your less good ones, in addition to providing a better general understanding of how your health is changing over time.

Preventive medicine is a heck of a lot cheaper and less stressful than acute treatment, and I believe observability is a key component.

Currently, Health Observability is constrained by data. People either do not collect data or the data that is collected is not freely accessible, which limits its utility. Increasing Health Observability will lead to better health outcomes and I believe the path to getting there is creating better health data integrations and or more open data sources.

[1] I showed a friend of mine my Dashboard and they called it “Health Doxing.” Though that was funny.

[2] If you find one, let me know :)

[3] Shoutout to the developer for making such a frictionless experience, and adding data export!

[4] There are no automated mechanisms I’m aware of to accurately and automatically track calories and macros consumed.

[5] Even if you have a good handle on your finances, observability can help with financial planning; monitoring your capital is a good idea.