Report: Google set to launch 'Google Fit' health data platform

Google is reportedly preparing its own health data platform, called “Google Fit,” to compete with the recently-launched health platforms from Samsung and Apple.

Forbes is reporting today that the search giant will launch the new platform at its Google I/O developers event June 25 and 26 in San Francisco.

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Citing “several sources familiar with the company’s plans”, Forbes believes Google wants to build a cloud repository that can collect health data from all kinds of wearable devices — from step counters to blood glucose monitors.

Google Fit would allow wearables makers to connect their apps with the Google Fit platform using an application programming interface (API), a set of coded instructions that allow two apps to trade data.

Google has been down this road before with its ill-fated Google Health platform, which also proposed a repository for health data. Aside from nagging privacy questions, consumers just weren’t comfortable giving their health data up to a big Internet company.

Apple announced its consumer health platform, HealthKit, at its WWDC conference June 2. Samsung announced its “SAMI” health data platform May 28 at an event in San Francisco.

Some observers believe the reason Apple and Samsung are jumping into health data now — and why Google may be returning — is that the companies have found a way to build platforms without getting entangled in health privacy and FDA regulation. But the regulatory framework around health apps and platforms, as the companies may find out, is also in a state of flux.

VentureBeat will be in attendance at Google I/O at the end of the month, when we’ll have more on Google Fit if such a product is announced.