Research Studies with FitnessSyncer

You open the link the people running the study gave you, which opens that study. The page gives the study’s name, its description and whatever instructions the people running it wrote, and then takes you through a short list of steps:

1. Sign in, or create a free FitnessSyncer account.
2. If the study offers a set of connections to start with, Add default Sources and Authenticate sets them up, and you sign in to each service yourself.
3. Select Allow Access to let the study read your data. You are shown the study’s description again, and whether the study is identified or pseudonymous, before you choose.
4. Add any other sources you want the study to have, which works the same way as adding any source.

Nothing reaches the study until you select Allow Access, and nobody can grant that for you.

The health and fitness data in your account that you agreed to share with it, and nothing else in it. The study reads your data; it cannot add to it, change it or delete it.

It reads each kind of data from the day you agreed to share it. If the study later asks for another kind of data and you agree, it reads that kind of data from the day you agree, not from the day you joined.

We keep a record of each day the people running the study read your data, and of the account they read it with.

• Your password and your passkeys.
• The sign-ins of the apps and devices you connected. A study is never given a credential for your account, or for any service you connected to it.
• Anything belonging to an account that has not joined the study.

That depends on the study, and the study’s page says which it is before you grant it access.

• An identified study is told your e-mail address, and the page says so in as many words.
• A pseudonymous study is not. The people running it see a code in place of your e-mail address, in what they download and in what they read through our API.

On an identified study, one role in an organization sees a participant’s e-mail address and the other roles do not. Read Which role may do what.

Stop sharing with this study is the one control, and it is drawn in these places:

• On the study’s own page, once you are taking part in it.
• For a research study, beside the study in the list of studies you are taking part in, which is drawn below the study’s own page.
• On the Permissions tab of your Account page, if you joined the study before November 2026, where it is listed among the services you allowed.

Either one does it, and you are asked to confirm. From then on the study reads nothing more of your data, and you are no longer in what it downloads or in what it reads through our API.

We prevent the study’s access to all of your data as soon as you revoke it. The study may already have taken a copy of the data it read before then. If you have concerns about the study using any part of your data, you should contact them directly.

Your own data is untouched. All of it is still in your account for you to use as before.

Yes. Open the study’s link again and select Allow Access. The study reads your data again from then on.

FitnessSyncer does not charge you anything for taking part, whatever devices and apps you connect, and a study can pay for FitnessSyncer Pro for the people taking part in it. Any cost of taking part that does not come from us, such as a device the study asks you to wear, is between you and the people running the study.

A study belongs either to one personal FitnessSyncer account or to an organization. A personal study is run under a research agreement with us on that account, and the account that owns it does everything on it. An organization’s study is run by the roles its members hold, so more than one person can reach it and it carries on when one of them leaves.

On an organization’s study:

• Organization owner, Organization administrator and Study investigator each see the organization’s studies, build their downloads, and read them through our API.
• Study investigator is the only one of the three that sees a participant’s e-mail address on an identified study. An owner or an administrator who does not also hold that role builds downloads of their own and reads the same API answers, with a code in place of each address, and cannot download an export an investigator built. This is deliberate: running the organization is not by itself a reason to read a named person’s health records.
• On a pseudonymous study nobody sees a participant’s e-mail address, whatever role they hold.
• The other roles, Group lead, Organization coach and Organization member, have nothing on a study.

Read Members and roles for everything else each role allows.

Your Research lists each study you may run and how many people are taking part in it. Read the roster beside a study opens its roster, one row per person who has consented: whether they are still taking part, the day they consented where your role allows you to see identities, the kinds of data their own consent covers (with the day they agreed to any kind of data added since, where your role allows you to see identities), how many services they connected for those kinds of data, and when we last read one of those services. Nothing about the services of somebody who is no longer taking part is shown. Sort on Days since last sync to bring whoever has gone quiet to the top of the list.

Last sync is the last time one of the services a participant connected brought something in, so somebody whose device has stopped reporting shows a sync that is days old. Somebody who has connected nothing, or whose data reaches us through our API or the Notebook instead, has no sync to show.

A participant is named by their e-mail address where your role allows you to see one, and by their study code otherwise. Read Which role may do what.

Build an export of this study beside a study opens its export page. Choose Start date of the export, End date of the export and the data types you want, then select Build an export. The export is built in the background, we send you an e-mail when it is ready, and Download the export appears beside it on that page. If it could not be built, the e-mail says so and what to do; an export too large to build at once is built again with a shorter window or fewer data types. Every export the study has built stays listed there with the window and the types it covered, so a paper can name the data it used.

The export holds only the kinds of data and the days each participant’s own consent covers, whatever window and types you ask for. Somebody who agreed to share their sleep before you added weight to the study has no weight in the export until they agree to the study again, and from then on has their weight from the day they agreed to it.

Each export is a ZIP file holding one CSV for each source of each participant, named after the participant, the kind of data and the service. Beside those CSVs:

• Summary.csv, listing each participant’s sources of the kinds of data in the export and whether each one is enabled.
• Codebook.csv, naming every column written, with its heading, the group of fields it belongs to, its unit of measure where the measurement has one, and the services that supplied that kind of data in this study.
• manifest.json, recording which export this is, who built it, the window, the types, and one entry per participant with their code or address, the day they consented and the day they agreed to each kind of data where you see identities, and the files written for them.

The first column of every CSV says who the row belongs to: their e-mail address when you see identities, and their code when you do not.

The file itself is kept for seven days. The record of the export and its manifest stay with the study, so build the same window again if you need the file after that. When a participant deletes their FitnessSyncer account, the manifests kept with the study name them by their study code from then on; a file already built keeps what it held until its seven days are up.

Yes. GET /api/researchers/users/ lists who is taking part in one study, and you then read each participant’s sources and their data through the ordinary source and data endpoints with your own credential. You are never given a credential for a participant’s account, and you read only the kinds of data each participant consented to the study reading. Your own credential needs the research permission. Read FitnessSyncer for Researchers in our API documentation.

On a pseudonymous study the API answers the list of participants with each person’s study code. The data endpoints are a different matter: a source read on a pseudonymous study carries no participant name, and no code in its place, so the API alone will not group a pseudonymous study’s data by participant. Download the study instead, where every row carries the participant’s code. If your study needs the API, speak to your representative about what it can answer for you.

Create a study opens the study editor. There you set its name, the description and the instructions the people taking part read, whether it is listed publicly or joined only from its link, whether it is identified or pseudonymous, and the kinds of data it collects. The editor then gives you the address to share with the people you are recruiting. Once somebody has joined, the study’s last day can be moved earlier but not later, because everybody who joined agreed to the study as it was.

That link is drawn for an account with a research agreement, and for an organization role that may manage studies. If you do not see it, contact us and we will set the study up with you.