Google Coach rumoured to be Wear OS’ answer to Apple Health

A new report has claimed that Google is hard at work on new health monitoring software. Google Coach (or Project Wooden, as it’s internally known) will bring together all of the health data Google has on you, and use it to generate personalised health and fitness advice. 

The news comes as Google is widely expected to launch a Google Pixel Watch, which will do for Wear OS what the Google Pixel phones do for Android (showing off the software at its best, in order to drum up interest from fans and manufacturers alike).

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What’s interesting about the report, which comes to us from Android Police, is that the software will apparently go beyond simply tracking your fitness to actually offering proactive suggestions about how to keep fit.

Obviously, some of these suggestions will revolve around hitting the gym for a good old-fashioned workout, but it will also offer meal suggestions to help improve your diet.

Here, Google Coach will apparently be clever enough to plan out an entire week’s worth of meals, and even deliver a shopping list straight to your email inbox.

The software will also apparently be clever enough to adapt to your needs when you’re busy. Missed a workout? Coach will recommend an alternative. Heading out for dinner a couple of times this week? No problem, Coach will integrate with your calendar to intelligently understand how many meals you’re actually going to need to cook.

With so many notifications, Google is apparently also considering making Coach interact with users in a very conversational way by, for example, combining multiple notifications into single messages sent on a less regular basis.

An ambitious attempt

If this report is accurate, then Google would appear to have very high ambitions for this software. Then again it needs to.

Wear OS and Android Wear before it have always lagged behind the Apple Watch, and functionality like this could be exactly what Google needs to tear people away from Apple’s tightly integrated wearable.

The ambition of the features discussed in the report make it sound as though Google Coach is at an early planning stage, and the anonymous source doesn’t appear to make any mention of having got any of this functionality working just yet.

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So we’d be very surprised if Google Coach arrived in this complete form when − or indeed if − it launches, but Google will no doubt have its work cut out if this is the high bar it’s set for itself.

Would you want a smartwatch that tells you what to eat? Let us know @TrustedReviews.