Data types

The health plugin 13.3.2 defines 111 values in HealthDataType. It lists 38 of them for Android and 101 for iOS, and 28 for both.

When a health measure starts, CARP Mobile Sensing (CAMS) removes the types that the current platform does not list and logs a warning. One protocol can therefore name types for both platforms.

Android permissions

On Android, each data type needs the read permission of its Google Health Connect record type, declared in the manifest and allowed by the participant. For the permission of each type, see All data types. Some permissions cover several types:

For each workout, the plugin also reads the distance, total calories and steps recorded during it, which needs their read permissions. Declare READ_DISTANCE, READ_TOTAL_CALORIES_BURNED and READ_STEPS as well.

To ask the participant for these three permissions, pass DISTANCE_DELTA, TOTAL_CALORIES_BURNED and STEPS to requestHealthPermissions() of the health service manager. Routes that other apps recorded appear only after the participant allows exercise routes for your app in the Health Connect app.

Limitations

The health plugin reads the data types of a measure one after another. When one type fails, the run discards the data of every type in the measure. These types fail on some phones:

• SKIN_TEMPERATURE fails on Android phones that do not support skin temperature.
• ATRIAL_FIBRILLATION_BURDEN, SLEEP_WRIST_TEMPERATURE, UNDERWATER_DEPTH, UV_INDEX and WATER_TEMPERATURE need iOS 16.0 or later and fail on iOS 15.
• TOTAL_CALORIES_BURNED fails on every iPhone.

Put a type that may fail in a measure of its own, so that its failure does not stop the others. A BackgroundTask keeps only the first measure of each measure type, so give each health measure its own task:

protocol.addTaskControl(
  PeriodicTrigger(period: const Duration(hours: 1)),
  BackgroundTask(
    measures: [
      HealthSamplingPackage.getHealthMeasure([
        HealthDataType.STEPS,
        HealthDataType.HEART_RATE,
      ]),
    ],
  ),
  healthService,
);
protocol.addTaskControl(
  PeriodicTrigger(period: const Duration(hours: 1)),
  BackgroundTask(
    measures: [
      HealthSamplingPackage.getHealthMeasure([HealthDataType.SKIN_TEMPERATURE]),
    ],
  ),
  healthService,
);

A separate task does not help with access on Android. There, the health service reads nothing until the participant allows every data type of every health measure.

On iOS, GENDER, BIRTH_DATE and BLOOD_TYPE are characteristics of the participant, not samples, and they return one data point on every run. See Platform differences.

All data types

NO_UNIT marks values without a unit, such as BODY_MASS_INDEX, and some values in a value class other than NumericHealthValue, such as WORKOUT. For the fields of each value class, see Value classes. For the workout activity types, see Workout types.

The table gives each type's platforms, the unit of its values and its Health Connect read permission, without the android.permission.health. prefix: