Google Calendar Now Integrates with Health Apps
- Paul Thurrott
- Jan 06, 2017
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Google Calendar picked up some interesting functionality this week: It now integrates with other apps so it can intelligently add fitness goals to your schedule.
This is perhaps a bit more profound than is obvious at first blush, though to be fair the integration, for now, includes only two external apps, Apple Health and Google Fit. It’s hard to imagine this not expanding to include more apps—not to mention more app types, which is where the profound bit comes in—in the future.
But that’s for the future. For now, this integration builds on the goals feature that Google added to the app/service back in April. This feature is a neat idea: You basically tell Google Calendar which goals you’d like to achieve—related to exercise, skill building, friends and family, me time, or life organization—and it will schedule that time, optimally, given your free time. And then of course remind you when it’s time.
This week, Google announced that it was extending this feature by allowing you to connect your exercise goals to Apple Health or Google Fit. So when you complete exercise-related activities using one of those apps, your exercise-related goals in your calendar will be marked as completed.
There’s also a new visual performance tracker in Google Calendar so that you can easily see how you’re doing over time, right from the app.
What’s neat about this is that Google Calendar will tailor your exercise schedule going forward based on when you’re most likely to complete those exercises. In watching you, it will learn more about you, and can then help you.
“Say you set a goal to run at 6:30 every other morning but aren’t actually hitting your stride until 7:15,” Google product manager Florian Goerisch explains. “Google Calendar has you covered and will adjust accordingly. So not only can Calendar keep track of your activities and performance, it can also help you find the best time to do them.”
Pretty cool. And a neat step, I think, to any even more efficient—and in this case healthy—future.