Is there any closed source android app that you wish had a good open source alternative?

federino@programming.dev to Open Source@lemmy.ml – 207 points –

I'm currently looking to develop an open source app that can help somebody. I'm currently out of ideas, so I'd like to heard if from you guys.

Sorry if it seems to lazy to ask for ideas like that, I just thought that I could do it since the result will be a free app.

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It would be a huge undertaking, but a Fitness and Health tracker / aggregator that could replace Google Fit and the likes.

I really can't bear how Google, Apple, Samsung, and all these big companies are the primary holders of our most intimate information. I've put some measures in place to limit who gets what, but it would be a huge boon to be the sole maintainer of my own info.

The problem is that the various apps and devices which report data won't immediately support syncing with a FOSS upstart...

The app I use for grabbing my weight and BMI can only sync with a few other apps. The app I use for calorie and diet tracking can likewise only sync with a few apps. They happen to have Google fit in common, so I use that as an intermediary to transfer weight to the calorie/diet app. All my steps, exercise, and sleep stay in Zepp, separate from them all.

It sure would be nice to have one service/application to rule them all and a secure method of storing one's own personal information without having to give it to the tech companies. Sure, use one of the many cloud services but encrypt all the data so that they can't steal it. Yadda yadda.

One can dream.

I develop a self-hosted service designed to do exactly this! It's not quite finished yet, but it's at the point where enough functionality works that it can be used for testing.

https://github.com/connervieira/HealthBox

The docs/USAGE.md file gives an overview of how HealthBox works. Feel free to poke around in the other docs/ files as well.

More than once I've wondered if I can make something look like google fit to other apps, obviously would have to be on a degoogled rom, which limits its utility for a wider audience.

the devices would have to be degoogled so that the app can gather the necessary information? I never used google fit, so I don't know how it works nor how it gathers the user information.

My thinking runs: is it possible to implement the APIs that are called to use google fit, assuming they run through google play services or something

would probably never happen considering how hippa compliance and privacy