Accessing Samsung Health Data through Health Connect
Health Connect is a platform that enables you to integrate Samsung Health data with your applications, creating new opportunities for health applications that enhance the user's journey towards better health. Using the Health Connect APIs, you can, for example, retrieve a user's Samsung Health data, such as their exercise, sleep, and heart rate information, and send data to the Samsung Health application. This is the first blog post in a series that introduces you to Health Connect API features and how you can use them in your applications. Let's begin by looking at how Health Connect interacts with Samsung Health data, and the basic workflow. Understanding this is essential for creating applications that use data from Samsung Health and Health Connect. Samsung Health Samsung Health is an application that can be installed on Android smartphones and tablets, and on Galaxy Watches. It can use the sensors on the device, including the Galaxy Watch's BioActive sensor, to measure the user's overall health data, including steps, exercises, heart rate, sleep, blood oxygen saturation and body composition. Let's consider the most common scenario: the Samsung Health application is installed on both the Galaxy Watch and a smartphone. The application synchronizes the measurements between both devices and manages the user's health data securely on them. For example, if the user measures their blood pressure with the Samsung Health Monitor application on their smartphone, the data can be shared to Samsung Health. Health Connect Since the Samsung Health application supports various useful health data types and gathers data from all connected devices, developers are very interested in obtaining access to that data. Consequently, Samsung collaborated with Google to build the Health Connect platform, which was released in May 2022. Health Connect enables applications to share health and fitness data across Android devices with the user's consent. For more information about Health Connect, see Health Connect Guide and Health Connect APIs. Samsung Health has supported synchronizing data with Health Connect since application version 6.22.5, released in October 2022. The Health Connect APIs support devices using Android SDK 28 (Pie) or higher. Once the user has connected Samsung Health to Health Connect, new or updated data in Samsung Health is shared to Health Connect. This means that your applications can use the Health Connect APIs to access Samsung Health data. Samsung Health synchronizes health data with Health Connect in both directions: When Samsung Health has new or updated data, it writes the data to Health Connect. When Health Connect has updated data, Samsung Health retrieves it. For example, a blood glucose meter connected to Samsung Health measures the user's blood glucose level. This data is saved in Samsung Health and then sent to Health Connect. Similarly, whenever there is new blood glucose data in Health Connect, Samsung Health retrieves that data and saves it in Samsung Health. To demonstrate how data synchronization works, let's walk through an example of adding nutrition information to Samsung Health. To start data synchronization between Samsung Health and Health Connect, you must enable it in the Samsung Health application on your Android device. From the Settings menu, select Health Connect. If Health Connect is not installed, you are prompted to install it. The first time you access the Health Connect menu item in Samsung Health with the Health Connect application installed, you are asked for permission to share your Samsung Health data with Health Connect. Select the data you consent to sharing, and select Allow. Samsung Health and Health Connect are now linked and data is shared between them. To test the data synchronization, in Samsung Health, go to Food tracker and create some nutrition data. In Samsung Health, go to Settings > Health Connect, and select Data and access. If Health Connect has received nutrition data from Samsung Health, a Nutrition item appears in the Browse data list. To view the synchronized data, select Nutrition. Data synchronization timing Data synchronization between Samsung Health and Health Connect occurs on the smartphone side. To take advantage of health data collected by a Galaxy Watch, you must understand at which times the Galaxy Watch sends its data to the Samsung Health smartphone application. New or updated health data on each connected device is generally synchronized with Samsung Health in the following situations: The Galaxy Watch reconnects with the smartphone The user opens the Samsung Health application home screen on the smartphone The user pulls down on the Samsung Health application home screen on the smartphone However, some types of health data are synchronized differently: For battery conservation reasons, continuous heart rate data from the Galaxy Watch is not sent to the Samsung Health application on the smartphone immediately. However, manual heart rate measurements on the watch are synchronized immediately. Enabling Settings in Samsung Health To synchronize health data between Samsung Health and Health Connect please consider: Using the latest Samsung Health and Health Connect versions. You can check them in Google Play. If you're interested in Galaxy Watch's data, check its version too. Allowing data permissions through the following path: Samsung Health > Settings > Health Connect > App permissions > Samsung Health (Note that you must enter from the Samsung Health settings, not from Health Connect settings.) Synchronizing Samsung Health data in: Samsung Health > Settings > Sync with Samsung account > Select the 'Sync now' button in the bottom. Accessing Health Connect APIs If the user has synchronized their Samsung Health data with Health Connect, you can use the Health Connect APIs to interact with it in various ways. For example: Read and write data: You can retrieve data that has been shared from Samsung Health to Health Connect, and send data to Health Connect to be synchronized to Samsung Health. Delete specific data records: You can remove a specific data point or data of a specific type within a time interval. Aggregate and filter data: You can filter the retrieved data by type or tag and analyze it, such as determining the average, maximum, minimum, or sum of the values. Session data: You can group data into sessions by time interval, such as to generate a sleep or activity session report. Note : For security reasons, Health Connect data can only be retrieved by applications running in the foreground. The following table lists the various health data that can be synchronized between Samsung Health and Health Connect. Samsung Health data Corresponding data type of Health Connect All steps StepsRecord Blood glucose BloodGlucoseRecord Blood oxygen saturation OxygenSaturationRecord Blood pressure BloodPressureRecord Exercise session ExerciseSessionRecord TotalCaloriesBurnedRecord DistanceRecord Exercise (heart rate) HeartRateRecord Exercise (power) PowerRecord Exercise (speed) SpeedRecord Exercise (VO2max) Vo2MaxRecord Heart rate HeartRateRecord Sleep session SleepSessionRecord Sleep stage SleepStageRecord Weight / Body composition WeightRecord Body composition BodyFatRecord Body composition BasalMetabolicRateRecord To get started with implementing Health Connect API functionality in your application: Add the Health Connect API library dependencies to your application's "build.gradle" file. Declare the Health Connect application package name in your "AndroidManifest.xml" file. Check that the user has installed Health Connect, then create the "HealthConnectClient" instance. Declare the permissions for the health data types you want to use. Now your application is ready to use the Health Connect APIs. Other blog posts in this series will explore various Health Connect API use cases in more detail.Learn to Develop with Samsung
Measure Blood Oxygen Level and Heart Rate on Galaxy Watch 1. Objective Create a health app for Galaxy Watches powered by Wear OS, utilizing the new Samsung Privileged Health SDK to trigger and obtain results of simultaneous blood oxygen level (SpO2) and heart rate measurements. Partnership Request In this Code Lab, you will use a specially prepared mock library. It has limited functionality and uses dummy data instead of real-time data. To get real values, you will need the full version of the Samsung Privileged Health SDK library, which is available to Samsung partners. Apply as a partner by checking out the Partner App Program to get exclusive access to the Samsung Privileged Health SDK.New Smart Lifestyle Photos for Watch Face Designers
For those looking to include lifestyle photos on your Play Store watch app pages, check out the latest Galaxy Watch Lifestyle Photo Assets. Like the Galaxy Store Watch Asset Creator, simply paste your watch face into the “Smart” Photoshop file, and your watch face automatically appears on the watch—with correct perspective, shading, and more. It’s that simple! Photos Made Easy Choose from the many photos of Galaxy Watches in different environments. To take advantage of the photos' unique features, you must use Photoshop version 14.2 (CC 2014) or later and have a basic understanding of Photoshop. These "Smart" Photoshop files use Smart Objects for the watch face. Update the Smart Object with your design, and the watch face in the lifestyle photo also updates. Use these new photos on your Play Store watch app pages. Read my blog, Add Your Watch Face Design to Smart Lifestyle Photos, to learn how to use our smart lifestyle photos. Tizen OS Watch Faces Publishing a Tizen OS watch face to the Galaxy Store? The library of Lifestyle Photo Assets for Galaxy Store is a great resource for all Galaxy Watch models and the Gear S3. Your Photos, Your Style! Show off your watch faces and apps with style. Look for more lifestyle photos as we continue to grow our library. Have your own lifestyle pictures? View my tutorial showing how you can build your own lifestyle Photoshop templates.Where in the World is Samsung Developers?
Thanks to our mobile devices, we have so many ways to keep in touch with our friends and co-workers. Unfortunately, many of these apps and services have barriers that prevent us from using them. The Samsung Developers team is aware that we need to meet our audience of developers wherever they may be, so we're always looking for better ways to communicate. NOTE : Serious discussion went into the headline of this story regarding whether to use is or are. We're a rather pedantic bunch when it comes to usage, so to explain--our Developer Relations organization is called Samsung Developers so I felt the singular is would be correct. One of our writers said that there are many people making up the organization and most are indeed developers, so are may be more appropriate. Further, those of you reading may be developing for Samsung platforms, so you too may be a Samsung Developer. Regardless of whether it is is or are, we are glad you are here. The recent turmoil at one of the biggest social networks has affected how companies interact with their audiences. Fortunately, we don't rely on any single channel to deliver our message and listen to your needs, so we have many options. However, it doesn't hurt to publicize those channels so everyone knows how to find us. Social Media Social media is the most popular way to reach a large audience, but for two-way communication, these networks lack the tools we need to assess a problem and make sure the right team can handle it. Given the breadth of Samsung consumer products, over 95% of our DMs on social networks could be handled by using the Samsung Members app or by visiting the Samsung Electronics Support page. As such, we rarely respond to DMs on social channels unless it is truly about something for developers. We view social channels as a way to broadcast our message, especially on timely events, but social channels are not a mechanism for us to take feedback. If a developer asks a relevant question on social media, we will guide them to our official support channels and handle the task there. Channel Account Twitter @samsung_dev Facebook samsungdev LinkedIn samsungdevelopers Instagram @samsung_dev YouTube Our team operates the channel at youtube.com/samsungdevelopers. There is a lot of content there from many sources and many years, broken down into playlists. Similarly to social media accounts, we prefer to not use YouTube as a support channel. However, we occasionally get valuable feedback from the audience and we will have some engagement in the comments. If you watched the premiere of the Best of Galaxy Store awards on YouTube earlier this week, you might've seen us interacting with the crowd and giving shout-outs to the winners. We enjoy this real-time experience and hope to incorporate live chat into our future efforts (although, not necessarily through YouTube). Developer Forums We updated our developer forums in 2019 to use the popular Discourse open-source system, hosted by Discourse. Ron, our community manager, is on the forums every work day (and the occasional Saturday), making sure your questions are answered and escalating issues back to the appropriate development teams. To post a question on the forums or respond to others, you must first sign up or log in with your Samsung Account. Official Support Channel If you have a problem with your Samsung Seller Portal account or you suspect a bug in our SDKs or APIs, there is an official support process. Again, you must first log in with your Samsung Account and then visit the support page at developer.samsung.com/dashboard/support. Future Channels We want to be here for our developer audience, so we're looking for other ways to interact. Our developer evangelists have experimented with using livestreaming tools like Twitch to show live coding exercises. These were great during COVID, when we were all confined to our homes. We're looking to continue these as the opportunity arises in the future. With the turmoil around social media, several of our team members have started to hang out on Mastodon to try to understand the culture there. If it becomes a viable alternative, we'll add our voice. We have a handle reserved, but we haven't started submitting content there. We've been using Discord internally the last year as a way to interact with some of our gaming partners. We enjoy the interactions there and think it would be a great resource for office hours. Samsung US has it's own official Discord, so it's not exactly new territory. We haven't created a public server yet, but that's definitely one of our better options for the future. Then, there's Reddit. Several of us are active contributors there for our personal hobbies, but we're reluctant to use it as an official brand channel. It's a great resource for cat videos and stock tips, but it's not as useful for companies to get their message across. You Tell Us We want to meet our audience of developers, designers, gamers, and enthusiasts where it makes the most sense. Let us know your ideas by posting in the developer forums.Open Innovation at Samsung
Innovative technologies applicable to mobile devices - Equity FREE grant funding - Mentorship from Samsung R&D - Deep access to Samsung mobile devices and software - Springboard for long-term partnership Areas of Interest Areas of interest include but not limited to: Camera, Power, Audio, Health, On-device AI, Metaverse, ESG, Advanced Materials, Sensors, AR, Wearable, Foldable Unique user experience based on new mobile form factors such as Foldable and Wearable Cutting edge technologies that improve devices for more powerful, longer-lasting performanceUnleash the power of newsletters
What is a Marketing Newsletter? In business school, I learned that a business's primary objective is to generate revenue to sustain its existence. I also learned that a business can only generate revenue if it provides a service or product that consumers are willing to pay for. Additionally, I gained the understanding that consumers are more willing to pay for a service or product from a company they have empathy for. A marketing newsletter is a direct engagement with consumers. Newsletters provide a means to send information to a targeted group of users and potential buyers that improve brand awareness, inform them of product changes and include items of interest. A marketing newsletter has four goals. 🏎️ To increase customer loyalty which can be measured by subscribers of the newsletter 🏎️ To increase interest in a product which can be measured by open rate of the newsletter 🏎️ To generate traffic which can be measured by click-through rate to your web site from the newsletter 🏎️ To increase income which can be measured by attributed revenue of direct purchases via the newsletter A previous winner of the “Best of Galaxy Store Award,” Persona, uses a marketing newsletter because they believe that “the more communication channels you have with users, the easier it is to achieve brand loyalty.” Start Communicating to Your Consumers I used to go to a lot of trade shows; it is a great way to learn about your competition as well as ways to improve your product. I’ve noticed that it isn’t always the big corporate booths that have waiting lines, but the smaller companies with free SWAG will also draw interest. Before you can publish a newsletter you need customers to send it to. Smaller companies who can’t afford a marketing team still need to get information out to current users and potential customers. Without big budgets to interest customers, a company can still create initial interest for a newsletter from a product web site, Galaxy Store product description, social media groups, as well as word of mouth from satisfied customers. A way to entice customers to sign up or continue receiving the newsletter is with coupons, giveaway contests and special discounts. Sharing those in the newsletter first is an excellent way to retain your users and build brand loyalty. Persona’s marketing team is using all the social media tools. Their goal is to be found on every social media platform: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Reddit, Telegram channels, and others. However, one of the most important digital marketing tools is their well-designed website, persona-wf.com. Use the Right Tools for the Job There is an old saying that when you only have a hammer, every screw looks like a nail. While this is true, having a screwdriver available makes for a much better end product. The same should be said for a marketing newsletter. While having a word processing program and a mail account allows you to initially create and publish a newsletter, it is not as effective as using a proper emailing tool, especially as your business grows. A good customer relationship management (CRM) tool will have both operational and analytical systems. This makes it easier to not only organize and send newsletters, but also analyze and create reports as well as provide information that is used to target your audience. They usually include a dedicated email service provider. A couple of methods to measure the effectiveness of your newsletter are open rate as well as clicks from the newsletter. For their mailing program, Persona uses MailChimp so they have access to various reports that helps them tailor their audience. However, there are many mailing companies, such as Mailer Lite, Sendinblue or others, who can fulfill your business needs. Of course you can create your own mailing lists using basic office tools. Even if the mailing list is small, keep in mind that domain accounts that include email services, both free and paid services, have limits to how many emails or recipients can be sent in a set time period. I believe an advantage of using a CRM mailing program is the ability for unsubscribing. It is much better to have an unhappy reader hit the unsubscribe button than flame you on social media. Trying to handle removal of readers manually can be a very time consuming operation. Select the Right Style of Newsletter Annually I get a two-page recap from my aunt about her family’s prior year. I am often amazed to learn how productive my cousins are and that the new dog is such a scamp. However, I read it and toss it away. Her letter is just words and there is no engagement with me. It is telling and telling, but isn’t selling. A good newsletter needs more than just words and it needs a format that engages readers. The format of the newsletter will make a difference, so tailor your newsletter to your target audience. Some newsletters are a recap or summary with a links to content with more details. That format is easy to scan through and find topics of interest. It is a great format if your target is a manager or representative who is busy. The reader can skim or skip parts of no interest and deep read what they find important. Other newsletters may have a story about one topic with links throughout the story to more detailed information. If your target is detail oriented, these how-to newsletters will engage the reader. If your app is a game, giving users tips and tricks while taking them on a journey through the game draws them in. Another style of newsletter is mostly visual. Telling a story in images is especially useful if you have an international audience as it removes translations and has visual interpretations. Also if your target audience is more creative, you may want to go with a newsletter with more visuals. Adobe inDesign is a useful tool for creating a heavily imaged newsletter. There are many low- priced or free alternatives, such as affinity-publisher, if you are on a budget. Dominus Mathias, a Case Study Watch face designers like Persona or game developers with in-app purchases depend on repeat customers. I interviewed Dominus Mathias watch face design studio and their success story shows what you can achieve. You may find it interesting how a small designer company, Dominus Mathias, uses email marketing newsletters to increase their sales. Dominus Mathias cooperates closely with the company Vienna Studios for marketing and started collecting email addresses in 2019 for the purpose of sending a newsletter to subscribers. The reason was a way to alert customers to ongoing discounts with the end goal to increase repeat sales. Initially they used the Google Groups service for their newsletter. With the increasing number of subscribers, they were forced to look for alternatives that could automate the whole process. Ultimately they chose to use Fluent Forms, as well as the FluentCRM plugin for WordPress, in connection with their website, viennastudios.com. Using Fluent Forms gives them the ability to send newsletters, on average, about one per week depending on planned activities. Vienna Studios newsletters may include coupons, giveaway contests or special discounts in their newsletter, to entice readers to purchase products or visit the web site. The use of newsletters by Dominus Mathias and Vienna Studio has increased the number of recipients who read the newsletters and fulfill the desired action of purchasing a watch face design. Almost every newsletter has some success; the rate depends on various parameters such as the intensity/frequency of sending, the time of sending, the topicality and attractiveness of the promoted watch faces, etc. Dominus Mathias and Vienna Studio have continued to innovate to increase sales and downloads. In February 2023, in order to make the business more attractive for their customers, they introduced a new app called Watch Face Arena. This app not only provides current information about products that are on sale or for free, but also enables customers to actively participate in a playful way. For example, consumers can vote for their favorite watch faces that are in competition with another one and follow the ranking of the most attractive ones. The app is available on the Google Play Store. The Time to Start is Now The time to start your marketing newsletter is now, because you can. You don’t need to spend a lot of money for tools to start, you can use your business email address and a word processor. Starting small can be a big advantage. Even if you have ten names on the mailing list, they can be your alpha group. Don’t wait for a new product or updated version release. Start gathering names and contact information. If you don’t do it now, when will you do it?
