My Apple Watch tracks my steps when I enable “Outdoor Walk” and that includes my location. I find this really useful in tracking my leaflet drops without having to use a 3rd party GPS tracker. Everything is stored in the Health app on my phone.
What is Health Export?
Health Export is an app that exports the data from the Apple Health app in multiple ways:
Export workouts
Export workouts as a CSV file containing columns that available to workouts, such as active energy burnt, distance, elevation, METs and weather.
Export workout routes
Export workout routes as a zip file containing each workout as a GPX file. I found the easiest way to open these on Windows is GPX Player, from the Windows Store.
GPX (GPS Exchange) files are in XML format and contain segments of the latitude and longitude, together with the elevation and time each segment was captured. GPX Player simply plays these out on a map, and you can control the speed that the yellow line moves on the map.
Aggregate types
There are toggles for different categories of workouts you may take part in, and that can also track nutrition if you monitor that. This is saved as a CSV file.
Record based types
These contain useful information that are not so workout related such as blood glucose levels, heart rate, reproductive health etc. This is also saved as a CSV file.
Extended exports
Extended exports differ from the aggregate and record based types in that only 1 type is exported which is extended with its metadata.
PDF graphs
When viewing the summary of results prior to exporting, you will see a collection of graphs that depict the results captured in the export. There is a document button that exports this as a PDF.
What do I do with this data?
Since I only export the Workout route information when I have been out leaflet dropping, I use the GPX Player open on the left hand side of the screen and Excel on the right, I can record the date and time I started the leaflet drop and each road that the yellow line draws on.
What are the downsides to this method?
Apart from the obvious manual entry of the data into the spreadsheet, when I come to a new housing estate, I get fields or the building that was previously located on the site. This can be solved easily by taking photos of road signs.
