Microsoft starts to link Microsoft Health to Cortana to keep up on your steps

By Daniel Rubino
published

An early report tonight suggests that Microsoft has begun linking Microsoft Health accounts up to Cortana. The feature is reportedly found under Cortana's notebook along with the existing connections for Uber, Office 365, LinkedIn, and Xbox Live.

We have not seen the integration offered on our Cortana accounts just yet, but a reader of the site Curt K. sent us these screenshots above showing the feature in action. The tie-in appears to show a user's daily step count, comparison to the previous day and calories as well.

Microsoft has been busy integrating third-party services with Cortana over the last few months including their own. So far, users have the option to link Uber, Office 365, LinkedIn, and Xbox Live. Although Microsoft Health is not yet available for everyone, it makes sense that the company would leverage the personal digital assistant for such a function. Hopefully, it will begin to roll out to more users in the coming days and weeks.

Thanks, Curt K, for the tip!

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been here covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, Microsoft Surface, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics and ran the projectors at movie theaters, which has done absolutely nothing for his career.

60 Comments
  • Related topic.. Is it worth to buy original band?
  • **** why not. Edit: God dam it why is dam(n) censored?!
  • Because it doesn't have smart alarm.. And Microsoft seems to add features to new band only.. Even though thy are software related
  • What do you expect when they mark them down by ~60%? It seems like a close out to get rid of them because they aren't going to be supported. If they kept them at the $199 price, then I would expect them to continue to add features to them. Of course there should have been an upgrade offer for people that bought a Band 1 before the band 2 was announced. ($99 seems like about the right upgrade price.)
  • The original Band does have the sleep monitor feature though?
  • Yes
  • Lol
  • For $89 why not  
  • Yes! Still love my original Band and won't be getting a new one until this one konks out.
  • I used to have a Band, changed to a Gear 2 Neo, and went back to the Band when they dropped the price to $99. It's well worth the money.    
  • Unrelated topic...
    After seeing that One M8, is there any word on whether it will officially get W10?
  • Insiders Program? It has the current OS that's currently on the 950
  • My M8 has 10586.29. The only problems I have is the original Band barely works. I get notifications but cant reply back to text messages. The other issue is the Dot View case doesnt work.
  • I have no issues using the original band to text back, only issue I'm having is Skype messages don't show up at all on the band (I wish it did being it's intergrated into the default messaging app).
  • I was wondering about Dot view. I seen the image of the article and thought "hmm, I wonder?" No big deal despite owning two covers. Im ready to go back to using the M8.
  • I'm having some crashes on my M8 on 10, I think it's related to the firmware.
  • No Dot View, no double tap to wake, and a whole host of other annoyances (but those are probably just the awfulness that is W10).
  • Are you on the latest version? My double tap to wake works. Also, not many annoyances at all since the latest version.
  • It's an htc. You shouldn't expect much
  • Is been the best-supported Windows phone maybe ever.
  • Is there a cover like that for the Microsoft Lumia 950 XL?
  • No
  • I show it in my Cortana settings. US, ATT (obviously). I'll see what happens...
  • Just checked my phone, not there yet. ATT as well. BTW, checked all the things in my notebook, I can't believe how worse Cortana has gotten. She hasn't shown a movie trailer or tv shows mention in months! Hasn't even asked me about places I visited often....It's just sad how the experience is worse after the "updates"
  • This is nice and all... it looks helpful to have this in Cortana.  Unfortunately, Microsoft Health (without the Band) is not very good.  Health & Fitness was better.  I miss GPS tracking and lockscreen/glance screen support.  Worse it's so far behind Google Fit it's not even funny.  Google Fit can tell if you're walking, biking, or running automatically, plus it allows GPS tracking and you can also enter in activities after the fact.  Microsoft Health does almost nothing without the Band.
  • Really? And I thought the band was there most advanced when it comes to health and activity. That reason was poking me to buy one.. I guess not?
  • Notice that I said "without the Band".  Microsoft pulled their more advanced phone-only tracking app from the store in favor of pushing people to buy a Band.
  • Except they pulled the app in areas that don't have the band and basically gave a big old "**** you" to their fans because the Health app is only available in countries that sell the band. I'm really ****** because I used the Health and Fitness app daily.
  • Sorry about that.. You have the same opinion
  • But google fit doesn't have option to manually enter stride/steps length. And I think health fitness in more accurate than the fit
  • Neither does Microsoft Health (at least without a Band it doesn't).
  • Sweet, got it.
  • Let's dance the US-only twist again *dances*
  • Am I the only one who doesn't like the way this is being implemented? "Connected Accounts" make sense when we're talking about third-party services like Uber, not Microsoft services. Xbox Live and MS Health should be listed under categories like Games and Health, not as different accounts to be connected.
    Please tell me I'm not the only one.
  • Yeah, it should appear automatically. After all, the phone knows I use Health.
  • It's not getting the data from the app on your phone. It's actually pulling it from the cloud APIs. There's probably more people who would kick and scream that a "search engine" (which Cortana is powered by) is accessing their health data without permission, especially through the cloud. Also since Cortana is cloud-based, once you link it, it'll pull even when you open Cortana on a desktop/laptop/tablet outside of your phone. (And who knows, probably your Xbox One when it rolls out). This could be a problem if it was automatic, say your health info pops up while in the middle of doing a meeting screen share or while you are turning on your Xbox at a family gathering to play games/watch TV/movies. So yeah, probably better if they treat the API links as "connected accounts" so that 1) less holes for data to get hacked 2) gives people finer controls of what APIs are allowed/disallowed (compared with just turning on/off cards).
  • I know that it's not getting the data from the phone and that it will show up on every other device. I also don't think it should be automatic at all, I'm just saying that it feels miscategorised. It could be listed under Health and still be disabled by default. You'd just need to open the Notebook, go to Health and turn it on without needing to connect accounts that are already connected.
  • i know, right? i mean have to option to turn off/on is one thing, but why do i have to login to connect?
  • YES! That's exactly what I mean. It feels weird.
    Cortana can ask you for permission to do things like tracking flights and helping with your routine, why not have her ask the user to let her help with his health? It's not like there's a need to enter a password, right? She already knows my MS account password.
  • Hmm, Cortana has been showing me this for at least 4 weeks now. Lucky me?
  • Shoulda tipped us, you coulda been a contender.
  • ****! You coulda been a millionaire by now, man! 
  • Confirmed.
  • I am still stuck on Linkedin & office 365.
  • Stupid question: does MS Health work without the Microsoft Band?
  • It does, but it is very limited.  The discontinued Health & Fitness app was far better.
  • Limited and slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow to sync.
  • These are not enough o's to explain how slow it is!
  • If I'm not mistaken,steps only work with band right!? Unlike the old one works only with motion data.
  • Yeah, I keep getting 0 steps on my phone, so I guess you are right (unless this is just a bug).
  • If you have a phone with MotionData/SensorCore, you can use it to count steps in Microsoft Health by using the menu button then "My phone".
  • Too right. The things I miss the most about the Health & Fitness app was that it didn't need a data connection to show my steps (like when I'm out hiking with no coverage), and it also showed my steps right on a live tile.
  • So far, the Office 365 link in Cortana is only for business and school users. Not for Home or Personal Office 365. :-\
  • I find myself agreeing with @jhoff80. It ****** me off that you are forced to buy a band. Bing health and fitness had it all and they aborted it because it wasn't profitable. I specifically bought the Lumia 640 for motion data because I didn't want another gadget to carry around. BH&F served anybody who was willing to dedicate themselves to improve themselves. Now you have to buy into the system to get what was formally free. It's arbitrary.
  • Again, not available worldwide..
    Only have O365 and LinkedIn in france.
  • So basically we're gonna lose the Health features in the Netherlands?
  • Weird, this option showed like 2 weeks ago on my 950, after which I indeed set up the connection (successfully). Haven't seen it for a while now.
  • Why won't it let me join Microsoft health?
  • Got it on my 1520
  • Cortana's notebook still show me LinkedIn and Office 365 :/
    Is US-Only?