Can't add children to family account

[ben86]

Hi

I can't set up family account to set up Childs ace 3

I bought a ace 3 for my daughter, im not a Fitbit user so had to set an account up 1st. I used my google account to log in. I set up my family how ever on my family it just say

to add children, make sure they're part of your family on Google, then set them up on Fitbit, their name will appear

I have made my daughter a account on my account as she is only 5 and added her to my family on google but nothing is showing up in my family on Fitbit app

please can someone help 

thanks

ben

[sallyspy]

Yes, return it.
I think it only works for iphone users or people who had a fitbit account
before it joined google?
It is a pity they are selling it without warnimg.

[kaladd]

I purchased Fitbit Ace3 for my kids and when I purchased no where in their policy mentioned about any additional device that my kids need to setup and periodically sync their devices. I was able to use my phone and the fit it app to sync my Fitbit device and my kids. Recently, Google did a major change without communicating or giving any option to me and now forcing me to purchase a smart phone dedicated to my kids to sync their devices. This is forcing me to spend more money that was not told to me when I purchased the Ace devices and no where mentioned that the Ace Fitbit device need additional phone for kids. This change has been done and no option has been given to parents.

[Jeffreymlewis]

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@LizzyFitbit wrote:

Hi everyone, and welcome to our new members.

Thank you for sharing where you're encountering difficulty in the registration process. For those of you who have already registered your child for a Google Account and added them to your Google Family, the next step is to register your child for Fitbit.

To do so, open the Fitbit app on their mobile device, tap "Sign in with Google", and sign into Fitbit using your child's Google Account to begin Fitbit registration.

For complete instructions, see https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2346.htm.

Once you've registered the child for Fitbit using their Google Account, the child will appear in your Fitbit Family.

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This simply does not work. When trying to "sign in with Google" I'm told that my child account is managed with Family link and cannot be added to my device. This is the same Google account that was created by Fitbit/Google during the "move to fitbit" workflow. Absolutely ridiculous user experience.

Thanks to this completely broken Google/Fitbit account transition, I cannot sync my daughter's Ace 2. She's very upset that her watch has the wrong time. I can't believe how completely broken Fitbit is after the "transition to Google."

[Harry_V]

Hey everyone fitbit is turning a blind eye to all of this. Your child does not need their own device you can have them login to your device. That's not the issue here. The problem is super simple but no one wants to acknowledge it. 

• Fitbit Ace 3 requires child account
• New Fitbit accounts have to be Google accounts
• Google requires child <13 to have a supervised account
• Google does not allow supervised accounts to login to the Fitbit app

Google has basically bricked every single Fitbit Ace Device out there. 

[wazzy24]

That's the exact issue, and well said. 

[Harry_V]

Woah hey everyone just figured it out. I happened to talk to Fitbit again this morning and the agent requested me to try creating a new account one last time. 

Guess what Google has finally fixed it. Unfortunately my kids old Google account still cannot login to the Fitbit app BUT when I created a new child account using this link it worked like a charm. 

https://familylink.google.com/onboarding/fork?authuser=0

Please note you can only have 5 people in a family group. So if you have multiple kids my advice would be to create a separate family group with alternate accounts but heyyyy it works. 

[MandaC77]

The link doesn't show an option for apple users. My daughter has my old iPhone for music, games and this app!

[Harry_V]

So let me elaborate maybe this will help. My daughter has an old iPad too

• Click on the link 
• Login with your/parent Google account (does not matter if you are using iPhone)
• When asked does your child have a Google account say NO and create a new account for them
• Now go to your child's device (or use your phone if you child does not have a device)
• When asked to login to Fitbit select the option to login using a Google account. Even if you have an iPhone
• Login from the account you newly created 

[dreadpiraterust]

Interesting. had a similarly annoying tech support conversation with the chatbot *DEFINITELY a real person*...

I am curious, did you create a new account using the correct birthdates etc and just not activate supervision?

[dreadpiraterust]

this has to be the absolutely most hilarious issue resolution hack I have seen in a while 🙂

the funniest part to me is that google with their tremendous resources hasn't figured out the fix

[Harry_V]

Hey I know it is ridiculous. Also to answer your previous question you will need a supervised account. Ace 3 cannot be activated on a Fitbit account older than 13. For accounts less than 12 age Google will force supervision. 

Problem is that older supervised accounts cannot Login to Fitbit so you have to create a new account. 

The weirdest part about all of this is Fitbit has to know that people are suffering through this. They have not published anything on the forum acknowledging the issue and the fix. 

Honestly it is toooo much effort to setup a kids device. I was stuck with it since it was a gift. If I had paid for it myself I would have returned and bought a Garmin 

[wangyue365]

Same here, I bought two Ace 3, and I spent 3 hours to try to set it up. The online guide linked from the mobile app is misleading. I can't find the place on the app where the guide is pointing! How complex is it to set up a tracker?!

[Harry_V]

Agreed I provided the steps i used in a previous post a few days back. Try using that. The help section on fitbit site is useless 

[aleks001]

This is not entirely true there is another issue here.

For example after wanting to blow my brains out trying to set this up, I finally figured out I could add an additional account to my pixel 6a, great I thought. So I went to add the account and it realised it was a kids account and requried the parent account to Authorise it. So I then put in my account details at which point it wanted to complete an additional 2 step authentication. The problem is that it already switches you to the new user account that you are creating so you can't get bloody code that's sent to your phone!!!! So you can't even add your kids account to the same device that has the parent account, this is an absolute major fail on google's part. 

Now I see that even if I got it working it wouldn't have worked because my child is under 13.

This has to be the most idiotic design/process I have ever seen in my life. You have a device that is marketed to 6+ year old kids as it says on the box that basically requires them to have their own device. Why can't you just log into the app with a gmail account why does it have to use the phone account.

Returned the piece of crap today, will never buy anything Fitbit again, in fact I'm thinking If I will buy anything google again either after this absolute disaster. Should be embarassed. How could this have not been picked up in testing. A watch made for children who most likely do not have devices and no one tested if you can even add a child.

[Harry_V]

So I managed to add a child profile to my phone and it works just fine. Regarding the two factor authentication you could just use an authenticator app on your PC or tablet. 

However you don't really have to do all this. Let's assume you only have one iPhone or an android device that does not support multiple profiles. Just sign out of your Fitbit app. And sign into the Fitbit app with your kid's account. Finish setting up your child's ace device. Then logout of your Fitbit app and go to settings and disconnect your kid's ACE 3 from your iPhone. That's it done. Your kid's device won't sync with the Internet anymore but it will work just fine as a standalone device no issues. 

It's really unfortunate that fitbit team is just soooo clueless about ace device setup. My daughter syncs her fitbit with her old iPad and it works just fine. But you don't really need a kids device if you use my workaround. 

[aleks001]

It's not 2fa it's some additional security crap, where your two options are to send a code to your phone or to send a text to your google device, which neither you can do.

This is the thing I can't sign in with my kids account. When I go to do it "sign in with another account" it errors with "Can't add account" and I can either delete the existing account or add an aditional user to the device and this is where the issue is, because it is trying to use the device account instead of just using an any gmail account to log into the app, it wants to link the app to the device itself.

What I would need is another phone, tablet etc that can add an additional account and then be able to authenticate my account on the original device. It's hard to explain, but I guarantee you if you have  a sole android device that manages your kids account it is literally impossible to add your kids account as another account to your phone. This is more of a google issue then a fitbit issue, because the account you try to add is an account to your device not to your fitbit application and this is where it all falls over. It is completely un-necessary to link the application to your device, they could have just allowed you to sign into fitbit with a gmail account like every single other sain application out there.

[aleks001]

I will be buying a Garmin to. They just haven't thought this through, this should be a minute or two setup process at max, the fact they either haven't tested this or assumed that every child has their own device is a massive fail in my eyes.

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I see what your saying, could have made it work I guess. I'm pretty tech savy but you think for the majority of the population trying to work out how to do half this stuff would be close to impossible, not to mention that tones of devices won't even allow multiple accounts.

[DC42]

I can confirm that creating a *new* google child account for your child (with correct age still below 13 etc) and connecting it with family link worked for me.

(An account I had created previously for my child did not let me sign in to FitBit with that account - complaining that it was a managed account).

So that seems to be the way forward, and don't forget to enable location access when creating the new account as FitBit needs that too (otherwise you have to jump through more hoops to turn it back on!)

Total pain but at least it's working

[MavroDrakos]

I've just come this problem too. I've just been told that to use an Ace 3 that was bought in 2022 I have to create a google account for my kids. 

I think it is anticompetitive and in breach of contract to force people to have a google account just to use a device they have already bought.

I don't trust google with my data and I don't want my 7 year old to have a google account. I don't want them holding or profiling my kids for advertising purposes.

Personally I've had enough of these big tech companies treating customers with such phenomenal arrogance. I'm asking for a refund as the device is no longer as described. If not then it's going in the bin anyway as I don't want them having my kids data. 

[Phil8888]

Dear Lizzy,

I'm now already for days trying to get the ACE3 for my daughter working.

The screen telling me to 'Use ACE 3 with your child's Google Account' keeps on being the barrier. I don't really know what to do, and I've really tried anything I could think off.

I see also many people struggling with this.

So could you please do more to help us all out please?

Thank you in advance,

Phil