Ace Tweens

[Ash41864]

My daughter and her friends all have the Ace. We love it! Works great! But they’re all 11-13 and getting their periods. It’s incredibly disappointing that the Ace doesn’t have the period tracker. Seems like it would be a simple update to implement. Am I missing something? Or is this a marketing plan to get us to upgrade to an adult Fitbit?

[SunsetRunner]

I seriously doubt this is a marketing plan to force you into a more expensive device. It also is not dependent on any specific tracker. It is just not available in the children's app under a family account. I can't say whether this is a simple update or not. I see you have added a feature request so let's see how many people support your request.

[Ash41864]

I hope their responses aren’t determined by votes but rather by efforts to put out quality relevant products. Thanks for your reply!

[JuanJoFitbit]

@Ash41864 It's great to see you in our Fitbit Community! I'm sorry for the late response. However regarding your request, since it's not available for the kids account.

Since you already created a feature suggestion for this, the more votes your idea gets, the more chances it will have to be reviewed by our engineers.

I really appreciate your feedback, patience and understanding with this.

[Ash41864]

That is a stupid response. A quality, useful, relevant product should not depend on votes on a forum.

[Julia_G]

@Ash41864 , I appreciate your frustration (although it might have been a little harsh to complain that someone who was simply advising you of the best way to make yur views known was a "stupid response")...

Fitbit is a business, and it obviously does not want to invest energy and expertise into developing features that its customers don't want... So one of the reasons for the features board is to find out what the customers DO want, and that is why votes matter.

Obviously there are also many other considerations besides how difficult it might be to implement an idea.  For example, how many users it might upset, compared to how many users it might benefit...

Fitbit is definitely in the business of wanting to offer what its customers want, but the Fitbit Ace is designed for boys and girls aged under 12, amd that does mean they have to consider carefully what options they should offer.  

A kid's Fitbit is still a fairly new venture.  Maybe what they need for the future is a new "teen" Fitbit designed just for girls, maybe aged 10-15.  I think that would be great!

[Ash41864]

I appreciate that my response was harsh, but it was the fourth time I was told to vote up a comment in hopes of change which seems a redundant approach to business and product development.

I think parents do carefully consider which products to purchase and for active kids the Ace is appropriately priced albeit on the high side when considering likelihood of loss and damage due to 10-12 year old lifestyles, but thanks for the implication.

[Julia_G]

I totally agree, and I can see your view point that especially for girls first getting their periods the tracker could be really helpful.  I sure wish I had had somethng like that!  I was so disorganised and it always came as an unwelcome surprise...

On the other hand, Fitbit is a business.  For a tracker designed for all kids 8-12, how many of them are going to want to use this app... Is it cost effective to develop for this group?  And also, more critically, how many of the parents of 8 year old boys are going to get really mad that this is on their kid's app and the kid hasn't even been told about what this is...

So then Fitbit has to be sure to write code to make sure that this only appears on GIRL kid profiles... but then they have to choose what age... The parents of an 8 year old girl are going to complain too:  "Fitbit forced me to have a discussion years before I planned just because I bought her a pedometer...". So Fitbit chooses 11 as the cut off -- more computer code needs to be written to make sure no one under 11 gets it... Then the mother of a 10 year old writes angrily that 11 year olds get it but not her 10 year old who got her period early...

I have no real idea what the internal discussions at Fitbit were like, but I can imagine that there were lots of difficulties imagining what should be included in a child's tracker and what should be left out.  I think it is not that hard to imagine the difficulties...

And I guess that is why you were encouraged to vote...  Fitbit, like any company that wants to sirvive,  really does want to provide what its customers want! 

[JuanJoFitbit]

@Ash41864 I know how frustrating this is for you and your feedback is greatly appreciated.

@Julia_G Thank you so much for your support!