A few days ago, I wondered if there are any privacy respecting health monitors and/or fitness trackers available for sale these days. I would like to buy one, but do not want to share my personal data with strangers, nor be forced to have a mobile phone to get data out of the unit. I've received some ideas, and would like to share them with you. One interesting data point was a pointer to a Free Software app for Android named Gadgetbridge. It provide cloudless collection and storing of data from a variety of trackers. Its list of supported devices is a good indicator for units where the protocol is fairly open, as it is obviously being handled by Free Software. Other units are reportedly encrypting the collected information with their own public key, making sure only the vendor cloud service is able to extract data from the unit. The people contacting me about Gadgetbirde said they were using Amazfit Bip and Xiaomi Band 3.
I also got a suggestion to look at some of the units from Garmin. I was told their GPS watches can be connected via USB and show up as a USB storage device with Garmin FIT files containing the collected measurements. While proprietary, FIT files apparently can be read at least by GPSBabel and the GpxPod Nextcloud app. It is unclear to me if they can read step count and heart rate data. The person I talked to was using a Garmin Forerunner 935, which is a fairly expensive unit. I doubt it is worth it for a unit where the vendor clearly is trying its best to move from open to closed systems. I still remember when Garmin dropped NMEA support in its GPSes.
A final idea was to build ones own unit, perhaps by basing it on a wearable hardware platforms like the Flora Geo Watch. Sound like fun, but I had more money than time to spend on the topic, so I suspect it will have to wait for another time.
While I was working on tracking down links, I came across an inspiring TED talk by Dave Debronkart about being a e-patient, and discovered the web site Participatory Medicine. If you too want to track your own health and fitness without having information about your private life floating around on computers owned by others, I recommend checking it out.
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