Strava enables kill switch on Apple Health sync for third-party devices

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(Pocket-lint) – Strava has made a back-end change to its service that effectively cuts off third-party devices from syncing through its platform. This has prevented many Apple Watch users from closing their rings, as data that once passed to Apple Health no longer does.

There’s nothing more glorious than having your workout data appear elsewhere. For many years, users have been hoarding fitness equipment and finding ways to get that data to a final resting place.

For many Apple users – especially Apple Watch users – that last place is Apple Health. Strava has often been the enabler for this, allowing just about anything to sync with Strava and then providing a route to push that data into another service, namely Apple Health.

But while data will sync from the Strava app on your iPhone to Apple Health, there’s a new stance with third-party devices:

“Strava will automatically send data to Health such as route information, activity type, distance, time and calories. Please note that activities recorded from third-party devices (Garmin, Zwift, Wahoo , Platoon, etc.) will not sync with Health.”

It was a rather abrupt change: there was no announcement that a timing change was happening and no justification: Strava just seemed to flip a switch and turn it off.

For some of the devices on this list, that’s not a big deal. Ideally, a Garmin user should use Garmin Connect to integrate with Apple Health, rather than using Strava as a middle man. But the world of fitness data syncing is often far from ideal and for many people, Strava was the perfect fit.

For some market players – Hydrow for example – this potentially makes their product less appealing to Apple users, as this route has been cut off.

While the first instinct might be to clench an angry fist at Strava, the company might be right. It syncs with just about everything and generally quite well – why should it act as a stopgap where other systems fail?

The reality is that third-party devices need to sync with Apple Health using HealthKit and Strava, if you don’t really want to be part of the Strava community, that shouldn’t be the way to go. It’s a middle man no one asked for and it seems Strava doesn’t want to be anymore.

Ultimately, Strava has shifted the stance of its service over the past few years, wanting to be the service people pay for and subscribers get the most out of.

The question is whether Strava thinks Apple users might stick with its platform because it’s easier to use as an endpoint, or whether that will just see a lot of phantom users abandon Strava because it doesn’t no longer provides the service they want. .

Written by Chris Hall.