How to Connect Apple Health

Do You Need It?

No. Just5K works without Apple Health: the plan, the run player, the voice cues and the reminders all work on their own. Connecting Health adds a few things on top.

What You Get

• Your runs saved to Health. When you finish a session in the run player, Just5K saves it as a running workout with your distance and route, or as a walking workout for walk-only sessions. iOS asks for this permission when you start your first session.
• Runs from other apps count. If you record a run or walk with the Workout app on your Apple Watch, or another running app, Just5K sees it in Health and marks that day's session done. It needs to be on a training day and last at least 60% of the planned time.
• Other activities show up too. A bike ride or a swim of 10 minutes or more appears in your history as "logged outside the plan". It doesn't replace a session.
• Cards on Home. Five cards next to your program: today's steps against your usual day, last night's sleep against 7 hours, your resting heart rate since you started, and this week's running minutes and distance. Tap the Heart card to see how your cardio fitness has changed too; Apple Watch measures it on outdoor walks and runs, so without a watch that part stays empty. A card without data says so, and none of them change your plan.
• The Body card, with Just5K Plus. A sixth card shows four readings from Apple Watch: heart rate variability (the small changes in time between heartbeats), breathing rate while you sleep, blood oxygen, and wrist temperature while you sleep. Each one is shown against your own usual from the last 14 days, never rated. You allow these four separately, from the Body card, the first time you open it. The rest of Apple Health stays free, and during the beta the Body card is free too.
• A gentle note after a short night. If you slept less than 6 hours, today's session gets a note that extra walk breaks are fine. It's only a suggestion: the session stays the same, and it counts either way.

What Just5K Reads

With your permission, Just5K reads your workouts, so runs from other apps can count; your heart rate during a run, for the review at the end of a session; last night's sleep, for the Sleep card and the note after a short night; and your steps, resting heart rate and cardio fitness, for the cards on Home. With Just5K Plus, and only after you allow them from the Body card, it also reads heart rate variability, breathing rate, blood oxygen and wrist temperature. It doesn't ask for anything else. Everything stays on your iPhone.

How to Connect

1. During setup, tap Connect on the Apple Health step. Or later, tap Connect on the Apple Health card on Home, or open your profile (the round button next to the tabs) and turn on Apple Health.
2. When iOS asks, turn on the data you're happy to share.
3. When you start your first session, iOS asks once more, this time to save workouts. Allow it if you want your runs in Health.
4. With Just5K Plus, tap the Body card on Home, then Connect, to allow its four readings.

Changed Your Mind?

You can change what Just5K reads or saves any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Health → Just5K. To stop Just5K using Health altogether, turn off Apple Health in your profile: the app stops reading and saving, and your Health data stays as it is. What Just5K keeps and where is in your data and privacy.

Tip: Recording runs on an Apple Watch? Connect Health. That's what lets those runs count toward your plan.