Any chance or plan for an API to track foods?

Matte

Is there any chance or plan for you guys to make a public API? Even a simple, "Log 20g xyz food" would be awesome.

I've cobbled together some custom code with IFTTT and Google Assistant to make logging foods via voice possible. I'm currently just using a basic food tracker that I made to put everything together, but I'd love to be able to tap into cronometer to track my foods. Would definitely pay for access to this as well.

Thank you!

turtletot

I would also pay for an API key. I would really like to be able to quick add foods from a custom app or widget. I feel like you're really missing out on the opportunity to expand your community and reach by making it impossible for developers to help create tools for your community. Devs are expensive, and when you open up a public API you often get some for free...

Karen_Cronometer

Hi Matte,

We don't have publicly available API at this time, but we will consider it for the future.
Thanks for the suggestion!

Best,

jvatic

I would also like an API, or at the very least a data export option.

Karen_Cronometer

Hi jvatic,

You have access to all of your data in Cronometer. Log in to your account on our website and navigate to the Profile tab. In the Account Information section, click on the gear icon and choose Export Data. You can choose a date range and download your foods and nutrient information, exercises, biometrics and notes that you have entered.

Best,

jvatic

Thanks Karen! I was looking for that the other day but it's a bit hidden.

jvatic

@Karen_Cronometer I'm looking over my exported servings data and even though I entered everything in by weight the amount column is all over the place in terms of units. Is there any way another column could be added to the export to have the number of grams of each entry?

Karen_Cronometer

Hi Jvatic,

It may depend on the source of the nutrition data how it will be represented when you export your data, as part our of data licensing agreements. Rest assured the amounts will be equivalent to what you have entered into your diary, even if the serving unit is not the same.

Best,

jvatic

@Karen_Cronometer I see. So basically I need to keep a list of everything with a calories to grams ratio so I can calculate that column (everything seems to have calories).

Karen_Cronometer

Hi jvatic,

You could manually enter the gram value into the spreadsheet from your diary rather than performing the calculation to have the gram amount for each food in place of the equivalent serving size.

Best,

jvatic

@Karen_Cronometer I could, but that sounds like a lot more work than calculating calories per gram based on my diary once per item (which repeat quite a bit) then applying it as a formula.

gbarn

I vote for an API as well. I have developed a few Alexa apps and think it would be cool if I could tell Alexa what my weight was and have it update my daily biometric. Yeah I know that you connect to a brand of scale (or two) but being able to ask Alexa for "Suggested Foods", "What is my calorie count today", etc. would be pretty neat.

steveo600rr

I vote a public API too.

E_C_

+1 for a public API

strakernutritionco

Yea a public API would really help with a lot of things.

chad_moller

I would also love this request. Your app is largely designed as a SPA already. You just need to transform the responses/request bodies to provide a more readable format for a user API. As others have mentioned, start with ONE feature (log food), and add the other "Add to Diary" options incrementally. You'll end up with a richer product as we expand your product for you for free!

The alternative is for us to try to untangle your arrays of data going back and forth, and that's just unfun.

chrisbartley

+1 for api!

aurelian

Is there an API available yet?

Hilary

Hello @aurelian we do not currently have plans for a public API. Thanks for your interest!

eangel

A public API is, by far, the feature I would most like to see added to Cronometer. I hope you will consider it!

Matte

@Hilary that's unfortunate to hear -- would gladly pay for a gold subscription if an API was available to gold users only. Hopefully, you guys will reconsider and possibly add it in the future.

Hilary

Hi Matte, sorry to hear that! We do have many more features available for gold users. You can check out the details here: https://cronometer.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028026971-Subscription-Types

We are a small team and must prioritize our work accordingly. We've planned out this year pretty solidly but maybe next year!

audifanatic2510

I agree, I would pay for Gold too if you guys create an API

Misfolded_Protein

I would love even a minimal API!

Surye

API (or even a URL where we can get the CSV out in an automated fashion) would be great. I really want to leverage the data here.

masyukun

Ditto on API -- even just for logging. It would make an Alexa voice logging app possible.

masyukun

We are a small team and must prioritize our work accordingly. We've planned out this year pretty solidly but maybe next year!

As an aside -- any chance you all publish a road map for the year so we can see what's coming?

jvatic

For anyone who's interested, here's a web scraper I was using/working on in Nov 2018 to get around the lack of an API (it probably needs some love to work now): https://github.com/jvatic/cronometer

masyukun

Thanks @jvatic . That looks cool!

Here are a couple JavaScript functions for dealing with recipe export JSONs.
- One function adds the nutrient names to the exported JSON.
- Another function converts the recipe into the schema.org NutritionInformation type, which Google ingests and uses in its Knowledge Graph.

https://gist.github.com/masyukun/64a3490a464acaa3b9af6819f10dfbf4

MarkGStacey

Plus 50 for a public API

I'd like to be able to export to PowerBI for graphing, as well as log exercise from my own apps, not just polar/Strava etc

Hilary

@MarkGStacey did you know you can export all your data? Go to settings > account and scroll to the bottom. Here you can export all your data to CSV format if you want to go deeper than our trends tab in your charting.

marc_arceo

@Hilary +1 for an API!