cross-posted from: https://feddit.online/c/tech@piefed.world/p/2033566/withings-now-charges-100-per-year-to-sync-your-data-to-other-apps-including-apple-healt
Who?
Apple: “yea, we are kicking you out of our App Store. That’s only cute when we do it.”
Google: “well now that apples doing it, we are too. Also, we are getting into healthcare to completely replace you.”
Withings: “so it’s a bad quarter…”
Wtf there is no FLOSS health data aggregator in the year 2026 is beyond me. A fully open alternative to Google/Samsung’s “Health Connect” would be a great start.
Yeah, there is something missing here. We need devices that work locally and we need a free health data aggregator. But it does look like the big platforms really want to prevent this: Garmin has limited or maybe killed their API for FOSS devs. Strava wants a subscription. Withings, too. They all do not want you to take your data.
when strava closed their api recently, 2 or 3 selfhosted alternatives popped up here on lemmy. maybe one of them was also aiming at replacing garmin too, but I don’t remember
Well, if anyone here is open to starting a non-profit in Europe to deliver something like this, let me know. There is plenty of EU funding for this (I’ve done the research). The reason it hasn’t been done, as far as I can tell is:
- People always tell me that they don’t want to get sued when something happens when someone misinterprets/Misuses their data. This is dumb though as every health and fitness tracker is protected by simply informing the user that it’s not a medical device.
- It’s too difficult to support all devices. Partially true. However, there are many opensource apps that can already grab a lot of the data (gadget Bridge probably being the most well known). Also, not all data is always captured by sensors. Sometimes it is recorded manually (esp., for blood pressure cuffs). Also, consider that there is a whole Eco-sysyem of FLOSS apps that do collect health data that DO NOT share that data with other apps. For example, Medilog. An aggregator should be able to grab those apps data as well. It’s even possible to create seperate sync apps for these apps (assuming the developer doesn’t want to help) like the OpenScale sync app (which syncs to Health COnnect).
- It’s not a money maker. I hate when people say this. Why does all technology need to make the developers billionaires? A small organization could very easily make enough to sustain itself, they just won’t be Corporate Tech Bros.
Sounds like it’s time to do Withoutings
Sounds like a good reason not to become a new customer
Time to get open sourced.
Yeah, so fuck them.






