Hi,
I’m sorry if that was already posted, but nothing I could read directly fixed my problem.
I bought my kid an ACE 3 last year that used to work just fine using my own phone. After the watch was not used for a few months and having to change the phone it was connected to, i could not connect and sync the watch. It had been dead for a while, which caused the time and date to be off, so it could not even be used as a simple watch.
After hours of searching, reading and trials, I was able to connect my kid’s ace 3. I used only my own pixel 6a (android 14). I also need to point out that I'm in a region that apparently has some restrictions regarding the age associated with accounts in order to connect to google services. Thus I had to use a VPN for a few steps. (I had a paid one, but i guess a free one where you can set the location that will work as good)
I need to stress that it is NOT an acceptable solution to simply be able to connect a child’s watch, to sync the time, change the space shuttle to a unicorn and to see how long the kid sleeps. A much simpler solution NEEEEEEDS to be accessible.
Many of the steps were already presented by (and copied from) @Thharrison11 and others, but maybe because of android or my region, I had to do things a bit differently. Also, maybe some steps can be simpler or done in a different way I am not aware of, but here’s what I did.
Firstly, I was already connecting to fitbit using my google account. Also, my child did not have a google account yet. I have no idea if it would work with an already existing child account.
- Download the “family link” app by Google and log in with the same gmail account you logged into your Fitbit with.
- *** when I tried to add a child that is under 13 and create a new account, I got the message “ Can’t create the account; you cannot create a google account because you do not meet the minimum age requirement”
- Connect a VPN and set it to USA (you may have to find a free one if you do not have this)
- Open family link app and click “add a child”
- Click NO to the question “does your child already have a Google account”. If you try to use an existing one it will not work.
- Click NEXT to create an account for them. It’ll open within this app. Complete the steps this way and put their correct birthday (which should be UNDER AGE 13, because that’s what the Fitbit ace is for).
- Create a new email address and password for them
- Scroll down, check the 2 boxes, and agree.
- Next, enter the password to YOUR ADULT ACCOUNT to prove your identity
- Click next, next, next, and it’ll create an account.
- Now you can leave the Family Link App
- Now if I open the Fitbit app and try to connect with the newly created child account it gives me errors :
- Without VPN : “Region not supported; This service isn’t available in your location”
- With USA VPN: “”Can’t add account; This account is managed with family link.; To add your child to this device, you can either remove all other accounts or create a new user for your child; … “
- Create a new user on your phone (assuming you can)
- In settings
- Go in “system”
- Select “multiple users”
- “Allow multiple users” must be on
- Click “add user”
- Switch user and set it up without connecting any google account for now.
- Anyways, in my case if I tried to add the child account, it was giving me the “region not supported” error.
- * Open google play and connect with the adult account
- Install the fitbit app
- Install your VPN app
- Remove the adult account for that user
- In ‘“settings”
- Go in “google”
- Click the “ > “ on the right of the adult account
- “ manage accounts on this device”
- Click the google account
- Click “remove account”
- Open VPN app and activate it set to USA
- If not, trying to connect to fitbit was again giving the “region not supported” error
- * Open the fitbit app
- Connect with the newly created kid account.
- then say “get help from a parent”. Click next , agree, then enter PASSWORD TO YOUR ADULT ACCOUNT again.
- At some point, before completely set up the child’s fitbit account, it gave me an error and brought me to the main fitbit sign in page.
- Close fitbit app
- Turn off the VPN
- Reopen Fitbit app
- When clicking “sign in with google”, you should see your child’s account, because somehow, even if it crashed, it added the child account to the phone user
- Click “continue as (child account) “
- Should ask again for parental authorization
- Then it'll ask their height and info and finish registration
- Now you should be connected to the fitbit app with your kid account
- You can add the ACE 3 device
- During setup, at first it was stuck at the step asking for 4 digits.
- Once connected I could go into the watch settings and click “ clear user data”
- I retried after and it worked
Now, without VPN, the ACE3 sync on my phone using the new user I created and my daughter is happy.
* I don’t remember exactly what steps and I cannot reproduce it, but at some point it asked me to send a code to my phone. I had to make sure my VPN was not set to USA so it could send the code to canada (as I live in Canada). If I remember correctly, I simply switched back to my main account, get the code that was sent through text, then switched back to the child account, entered the code and continued.
