Apple’s finally giving Siri the power to tell you things such as your current elevation and the ETA to your destination during navigation in Maps, but Siri’s getting an even more important integration with your iPhone’s Health app.
With Apple’s iOS 17.2 software update, which is currently in beta, Siri can answer personal health and fitness questions regarding the data recorded in the Health app. That means you can ask Siri questions such as “How many steps do I have so far today?” or “When was the last time I had abdominal cramps?” without building complicated Siri Shortcuts manually in the Shortcuts app.
Even better, you can ask Siri to log your health information, such as the medicine you just took or your current weight. And it also works for logging fitness activities such as running, cycling, or push workouts. These capabilities are built right into Siri now with iOS 17.2. So you no longer have to mess with confusing “Log Health Sample” or “Log Workout” actions in Shortcuts to get Siri to do what you want.
What You Need for Siri’s New Health Skills
While you could ask Siri to start certain activities like a 30-minute outdoor run on your iPhone or Apple Watch, you wouldn’t be able to get it to log sports and fitness activity data for you without building those long Siri Shortcuts I keep mentioning. And it definitely wouldn’t log any medical data points like medicine doses or menstrual cycles for you.
WatchOS 10.2, also currently in beta, enables Siri requests for data points in the Health app and logging capabilities, but only on the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 models. This has been available on watchOS 10.2 since beta 2.
Likewise, most of iOS 17.2’s new Siri skills for Health first appeared on beta 2’s build, but they’re not limited by device model. Any iPhone model that supports iOS 17.2 should be able to use Siri to request Health data or log Health activity. Some requests did appear in beta 1, such as basic ones that would just open the Health app to the corresponding topic.
What Type of Health Data Can You Request or Log
Most anything that appears as an available data point in the “Find Health Samples Where,” “Log Health Sample,” and “Log Workout” actions in Shortcuts will work with Siri by default now. For some topics, you can only request information and not log data.
Some queries will result in Siri showing and telling you information immediately, while others will simply open the Health app to related information. Siri can find information for specific dates or periods for some topics, such as body temperature and step count. For example:
- What’s my basal body temperature?
- What was my basal body temperature this week/month/year?
- What was my basal body temperature last week/month/year?
For logging data points, you can ask Siri to simply “Log my [topic] as [data],” and Siri will record it in the Health app for the current date and time. In some cases, you can ask Siri to log information from the past, such as medication you took yesterday or a push workout you forgot to add last week.
Many of the following topics are supported for Siri requests and logging:
- Abdominal cramps
- Acne
- Active energy
- Activity rings
- AFib history
- Alcohol consumption
- Appetite changes
- Basal body temperature
- Biotin
- Bladder incontinence
- Bloating
- Blood alcohol content
- Blood glucose levels
- Blood oxygen
- Blood pressure
- Body and muscle ache
- Body fat percentage
- Body mass index
- Body temperature
- Breast pain
- Caffeine
- Calcium
- Carbohydrates
- Cardio fitness
- Cardio recovery
- Cervical mucus quality
- Chest tightness or pain
- Chills
- Chloride
- Chromium
- Congestion
- Constipation
- Copper
- Coughing
- Cycling distance
- Diarrhea
- Diastolic blood pressure
- Dietary cholesterol
- Dietary energy
- Dietary sugar
- Dizziness
- Double support time
- Downhill snow sports distance
- Dry skin
- Electrodermal activity
- Environmental sound levels
- Exercise minutes
- Fainting
- Fatigue
- Fever
- Fiber
- Flights climbed
- Folate
- Forced expiratory volume, 1 sec
- Forced vital capacity
- Ground contact time
- Hair loss
- Handwashing
- Headache
- Headphone audio levels
- Heart Rate
- Heart rate variability
- Heartburn
- Height
- High heart rate notifications
- Hot flashes
- Inhaler usage
- Insulin delivery
- lodine
- Iron
- Irregular rhythm notifications
- Lean body mass
- Loss of smell
- Loss of taste
- Low heart rate notifications
- Lower back pain
- Magnesium
- Manganese
- Medicine
- Memory lapse
- Menstruation
- Mindful minutes
- Minutes exercised
- Molybdenum
- Monounsaturated fat
- Mood changes
- Move minutes
- Nausea
- Niacin
- Night sweats
- NikeFuel
- Number of times fallen
- Ovulation test result
- Pantothenic acid
- Peak expiratory flow rate
- Pelvic pain
- Peripheral perfusion index
- Phosphorus
- Polyunsaturated fat
- Potassium
- Protein
- Pushes
- Rapid, pounding, or fluttering heartbeat
- Respiratory rate
- Resting energy
- Resting heart rate
- Riboflavin
- Running distance
- Running power
- Running speed
- Running stride length
- Runny nose
- Saturated fat
- Selenium
- Sexual activity
- Shortness of breath
- Six-minute walk
- Skipped heartbeat
- Sleep
- Sleep changes
- Sodium
- Sore throat
- Spotting
- Stair speed: down
- Stair speed: up
- Stand minutes
- Steps
- Swimming distance
- Swimming strokes
- Systolic blood pressure
- Thiamin
- Toothbrushing
- Total fat
- Underwater depth
- UV index
- Vaginal dryness
- Vertical oscillation
- Vitamin A
- Vitamin B6
- Vitamin B12
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin E
- Vitamin K
- Vomiting
- Waist circumference
- Walking + running distance
- Walking asymmetry
- Walking distance
- Walking heart rate average
- Walking speed
- Walking steadiness
- Walking step length
- Water
- Water temperature
- Weight
- Wheelchair distance
- Wheezing
- Wrist temperature
- Zinc
Keep Your Connection Secure Without a Monthly Bill. Get a lifetime subscription to VPN Unlimited for all your devices with a one-time purchase from the new Gadget Hacks Shop, and watch Hulu or Netflix without regional restrictions, increase security when browsing on public networks, and more.
Other worthwhile deals to check out:
