Splunk Your Health

The amount of data an individual or company generates everyday is growing exponentially, and with it, the complexity of analysing this data. This article aims to demonstrate one of many use-cases of Splunk as a data analysis tool. I will explain the process of exporting health data from from Apple’s Health App and, then analysing and visualising this on Splunk

Splunk is a software platform used to search, analyse and visualise the machine-generated data gathered from websites, applications, sensors and devices.

Health App is the iOS health informatics mobile app used to track the user’s health and physical metrics such as steps taken, body weight, heart weight and mood. The app works by collecting data from smart wearbles, phones and other third-party data sources authorised by the user. For the purposes of this article I will be using my iPhone which collects data from itself and my Apple Watch.

Although the Health App already displays some visualisations about the data collected; it is very generic and may not answer specific questions such as:

These are all interesting questions which I hope to answer using my data and Splunk so let’s get started.

To export the Health data open the Health App on your phone

and you should see the following output

The script has now completed the conversion and you should see many .CSV files in the original directory. You can have a look at any of these but we will be focusing on StepCount.csv

New Index:Select Settings > indexes > New index

New App:Select Apps > Manage Apps > Create App

Select Settings > Add Data (icon) > Upload > Select File

Next > Change timestamp > Advanced >

SPL used for Splunk Search.

There are many ways to improve this project below are some of the improvements that can be made

When it comes to analysing your data; the sky is the limit. You can answer specific questions about your daily habits and make improvements in your life and ,along with this, you can track your goals and keep yourself accountable.

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