← All articles

How to connect Health Connect to Ferrabelle (and what it reads)

By Chris Ayers 7 min read

Health Connect is the part of Android that lets health apps share data with each other, with you deciding who gets what. If your watch or ring already saves sleep, heart rate or temperature to your phone, Ferrabelle can read it from there instead of asking you to type it in. This is a plain walkthrough of how to use Health Connect on Android, what Ferrabelle asks for, and how to shut it off again if you change your mind.

I built the import to be read-only and to run only when you open the app.

What Health Connect is

Google describes it as a place on your phone where your health and fitness data is stored locally, on your device, and where you control which apps have access. Apps ask for permission one data type at a time, and you can revoke any of them whenever you like. It works on Android 9 and newer. On Android 14 and later it is built into the system. On Android 13 and older it is a separate app you install from Google Play.

The important idea is that Health Connect sits between apps. Your watch’s app writes to it. Ferrabelle reads from it. The two never talk to each other directly.

Step 1: find Health Connect on your phone

On Android 14 and up, Google’s help page gives the path: open Settings, then tap Security and privacy, then Privacy controls, then Health Connect. Phone makers sometimes rename menus, so if you do not see it, the search bar at the top of Settings will find it.

On Android 13 and lower, install Health Connect from Google Play first. Then open Settings, then Apps, then All apps, then Health Connect, then Open. Ferrabelle will tell you if it is missing: a card in the app says “Health Connect is not installed” with a button to get it on Google Play, and another if it needs an update.

Step 2: make sure something is writing to it

Health Connect only holds what other apps put there. If your watch’s app has never been given permission to write sleep or heart rate to Health Connect, there is nothing for Ferrabelle to read. Open your watch or ring app and look for a Health Connect option in its settings.

Samsung phones are a common case. If your data is in Samsung Health, it has to share with Health Connect first. Ferrabelle’s own help text spells it out: open Samsung Health, go to Settings, then Health Connect, and allow Samsung Health to write the data you track.

Step 3: connect from inside Ferrabelle

You can do this during setup or later. During the first-run setup there is a step called Health Connect, with the line “Let your watch or ring fill in the details for you.” You can skip it and come back.

Later, open Settings in Ferrabelle, then the Health data card, then tap “Connect Health Connect.” Android then shows its own permission screen, listing each kind of data Ferrabelle would like to read, with a switch beside each one. The app’s note on that screen is the whole policy in one line: “Android asks you what to allow, and you can change it any time. Ferrabelle never writes to Health Connect, and nothing leaves the phone.”

Allow what you want. If you allow nothing, the app says so plainly and offers the choices again. Once connected, the card shows how many kinds of data are allowed out of the total, the time of the last sync, and a “Sync now” button.

Steps and cardio are a separate switch, “Allow steps and cardio,” so you can bring in sleep and temperature without also bringing in every walk.

What Ferrabelle asks for, exactly

Ferrabelle requests read permission only. Here is the full list, taken from the app’s Android manifest, which is the file where an app has to declare every permission it can ever ask for:

That last one matters. Android treats data older than 30 days as a separate permission, so if you want your past year of sleep and temperatures to come in, you need to allow history too. Ferrabelle uses it for “Import your history,” which brings in older records one year at a time, newest first, and keeps what landed if it has to stop part way.

There is no write permission on the list. Ferrabelle cannot add, change or delete anything in Health Connect. What you type into Ferrabelle stays in Ferrabelle, and the app’s own hint on the steps card says it: “What you enter is kept. Health Connect never changes it.”

What Ferrabelle does with it

The data feeds your cycle predictions, the Fe Score, the Today card, the Body tab and the steps and cardio log. Temperature and resting heart rate help the engine place ovulation when your device provides them. Resting heart rate and heart rate variability feed the recovery part of the Fe Score, compared with your own recent baseline. Steps and exercise sessions show up next to the lifts you log by hand, and a Health Connect badge marks which is which.

Ferrabelle reads when you open the app, never in the background. The card says “Ferrabelle checks for new data each time you open it,” and that is the whole schedule. There is no service running behind the scenes.

Raw Health Connect values are never sent to an AI provider or to a partner. If you turn on the optional AI assistant or partner messages, only your cycle predictions can be shared, and only after you agree. A detailed partner message can say your energy in one word, from the Fe Score. No heart rate, no temperature, no sleep number ever goes out. The import itself is free, not a Pro feature.

How to turn it off

Two ways, and both are quick.

From Ferrabelle, open Settings, then Health data, then “Manage permissions.” That takes you into Health Connect’s own screen for the app, where you can switch off any type or remove all access.

From Android, go back to the Health Connect screen in your phone’s settings, find Ferrabelle in its list of connected apps, and remove what you like. Google’s own page says you can revoke access at any time, and the next time you open Ferrabelle the card will say so.

Data already imported stays in Ferrabelle until you delete it, like anything else you logged. “Delete all data” in Settings, then Your data, erases it along with everything else.

If it is not working

If the card says “Health Connect is not letting Ferrabelle read any data,” open Manage permissions and make sure at least one type is allowed. If the sync did not finish, the app says so and tries again the next time you open it. If your watch app has not written anything new, there is nothing to pull, and that is the first place to look.

Ferrabelle is in a closed test on Google Play right now. If you have a watch or ring and want your cycle app to read it instead of asking you to type, you can join at ferrabelle.com/testers.

Sources