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

[JulietRNz]

Good afternoon - still problems with Ace 3 set up - Christmas 2023

We've been struggling to set up our daughters Ace 3 all morning.  We followed the how to guides with no success trying to set up on my android device. We had the same problems as previous users with being unable to sign in to the FitBit app with the child Google account created on Family link for this, or to add her Google account as a user to the adult Fitbit profile in the app. The recommendation of deleting other google accounts isnt a viable option as she doesn't have her own device so the app is on a parents phone. Immensely frustrating!

We did manage in the end to set it up on my partners iPhone 13 by adding as a user in the Fitbit profile. This wont be a solution for every household but we were pretty relieved Miss 10 doesnt have to return her Christmas gift! The recommendations to set up for Android didn't work at all. Please fix.

Many thanks

Juliet

[Oish]

Hi,

wow, this is so frustrating! I’m thankful I’m not alone in this and found this blog. 

I have only Apple devices and have had the same issues. For me, I realized one of my kids’ Google accounts wasn’t registered as a supervised child’s account (under 13 years old). So when it’s linked to the family account, it shows up as a regular email account and not a child’s. Once I created a new email address for a child and it was ‘supervised’ by the family account, it worked! 

I also turned off all my Bluetooth devices around while having pairs by my kid’s watch.

Hope this helps someone

[jt1634]

I have come to post here because I'm so incensed at this registration process.  We bought my 11 year old an Ace3 for Christmas.  He wanted it synched to his phone.  What could possibly go wrong?  Here am I am for the past hour trying to set stuff up and finally success.  Here's a summary of what I learned.

My child has an existing gmail account.  It was made from a time before Family link was even a thing, so it was using a faked bday. The app does not allow. you to register an Ace3 under a non-supervised (ie. adult) account (it must be a child account). It said to log in as your child (ie. as a supervised account under a family group).  I switched the bday back to the true date, then added it to a family group where I am the supervisor.  Then of course, I encountered what everyone else did - I could not log into Fitbit using a supervised account.  Self contradictory?  Absolutely.  This is where @MetalDave  comes in - "Again, the trick is starting with the Google Family Link to create your supervised account, and it must be new as the legacy accounts (those that were created before Google took over Fitbit) will not work."

So I used Family link on my own phone to create a brand new "burner" email account as a supervised child account.  I then use this newly created account to log in under my child's phone - and of course this works.  And with this child account, the only devices that can be registered are the three existing Ace devices, and none of the other Fitbit devices.

Creating the burner account means nothing to me as none of this fitness data or activity is important enough to save under his normal gmail account - but this was highly annoying and clearly the Fitbit developers completely missed the mark by this major oversight of not allowing pre-existing child accounts to log in properly.

I will also echo @MetalDave  - "This is my sticking point for Fitbit Support, and I am doing my best to get their developers to push this up the chain to Google to authorize the Fitbit app for use with existing Google Supervised (ie child) accounts. It’s an unintended bug that just doesn’t have their attention yet.  Shouldn’t be too hard for them to address if they had it on their radar."

Seriously, FitBit, get your crap in order.  Maybe a small bug, but affecting thousands of new users.

/end rant

[PratikshaB]

Fitbit does not allow the child to sign in using their google account as it is supervised. So what is the workaround for this? 

[St3v3g]

In the same boat here 😞 Spent hours on xmas day trying to get this sorted. Cant add son (8) to fitbit account (new, dont have one myself) with an email. Try to create email family link but it wont allow me to do so. Get as far as asking me for a credit card (??), enter details, doesnt accept card. Utter trash system

[Harry_V]

Reposting my instructions from a few months ago for new arrivals. Basically at this time you have to create a new kids account for your child to setup Ace device. These instructions should work even if the kid does not have a dedicated device. 

• Click on this link 
• (If asked) Login with your/parent Google account (does not matter if you are using iPhone or android)
• For most you will see the question "does your child have a Google account" you should answer "NO" and create a new account for them (old supervised accounts fail. New ones don't. If your family has maxed out the 5 account limit then you will have to repeat this process by creating a secondary account for the parent first and setup a new google family. It's a mess I know. )
• Now go to your child's device (optionally use a parent's iOS device if they have one. For android kids need dedicated devices)
• Login to the Fitbit app using the account you newly created for your child (this works on android and iOS, on android if you don't know how to add multiple accounts do this)
• Setup your child's Fitbit (optionally if you were using a parents phone then after setup is over log out of the child's Fitbit account and in Bluetooth settings remove child's ace decide from parent's phone)

It's all needlessly complicated so hopefully they fix this in the future. 

[Eileencpearson]

I did all this but still get the message when I use the child login that she can't access it because she's under 13!?

[SunsetRunner]

This doesn't really work either as it still says it's linked to a Family Account and you can't login.

[aed82]

JT, thank you for sharing. Fortunately your child has a smartphone and you
found a workaround. I gave up after 2+ hours and I refuse to reset or clear
my phone's user account to login as a child account. I now have a
devastated child who received an unusable Ace 3 gift from "Santa". ...The
fact FitBit sold these Ace 3 watches without printed instructions or even a
QR code to tell customers how to setup means they know this is a problem
and don't know how to support it. Shame on me for letting this tech gift
be from Santa.

[aed82]

Harry V, Your directions do not work for Android users. I followed
directions to a tee and get stuck in an endless loop of the Fitbit app not
allowing child user login without parental permission... Receive the
following message:

Can't add account ......@gmail.com

Something went wrong.

This Google 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. [Seriously?!?!]

When multiple people (like a parent and a child) share a single device,
personal stuff can get mixed up.. Having separate spaces for children helps
avoid confusion, especially with parental controls.

[Henry1010]

Please stop telling people  that there is a fix. The product is broken. It does not work. There are hundreds of reviews online to prove it. The solutions provided do not work.

[aed82]

Harry V, within the latest Android phone settings, a child user cannot be added to an adult's smartphone device. This probably took affect after the 'workaround' was written by Fitbit. After following all those steps I am still getting this message from both within the FitBit app and from within my phone setting (as my child does not have their own phone yet)...

"Can't add account. ... @Gmail.com

Something went wrong.

This Google 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. [ I did create a new user for my child as you described but I cannot add him to my phone since he's a child account user].

When multiple people (like a parent and a child) share a single device, personal stuff can get mixed up.. Having separate spaces for children helps avoid confusion, especially with parental controls."

 

[Rbn-freedum]

YOU CANNOT HAVE MULTIPLE GOOGLE ACCOUNTS ON A SAMSUNG GALAXY PHONE! When I called customer service they just said yeah google bought this company and it won't work.

[Harry_V]

@aed82 that's interesting iOS devices allow people to login with kids account. Oh what a mess. Yes android devices like pixel allow multiple user spaces but it's super duper clunky. 

I guess the only option for anyone in the android ecosystem is to get their kids a dedicated device. LoL sorry guys. I'll update my steps above

----

That's weird my daughter is 8 years old and I was able to login to Fitbit app using her iOS device. If your daughter has android you might have to logout of her old account completely and re-setup her device. This workaround was discovered by @aed82 

[aed82]

@Harry_V I didn't discover any workarounds. My child does not have his own mobile phone and we aren't planning to get him one anytime soon. This Google takeover of Fitbit hasn't been well planned it seems.

[SallyWilson]

I have experienced the exact same problem and even worse my son ripped the packaging when opening which means Amazon probably won't take it back 

[MMan1]

After 2+ hours trying to solve this set up issue the only way this works is (assuming iOS users) You MUST have multiple devices (enough per Fitbit) to make this work and the ability to access Family Link in a browser that is NOT on the phone. 

Go to Family Link on a laptop / desktop (this will not work on the iOS Family Link app as far as I can tell) - set it up and add new child accounts under your Google account. Make sure they are new accounts, (set up burners) by answering NO to - do they have an account - even if they already have an account. 

Once this is done, on a device (phone) that does not have any other Fitbit users - log into the app using the Child email and password. 
It will then ask for the password of the account manager from the Family Link main account holder (parent) 
Keep going through all these steps entering the Adult password multiple times. 

Eventually the Fitbit account will activate with the child as logged in. Then go to add device and you will see 3 options for the version of the Ace you have.
Select as appropriate...few more password things to enter, eventually it will connect to the phone and activate the device. 

This whole thing is a total shambles - it should be fixed by Google / Fitbit so that a device per Fitbit is not required. There is no other workaround as far as I can tell, having tried everything listed on the whole of this 17 page thread over the last 2 hours, while my kids were crying at the thought of their latest gifts from Santa being unusable. 

Prior to this I have been a Fitbit user for many years and have always been impressed by the functions and usability for the cost. My current Charge 5 bricked for seemingly no reason and Fitbit sent me a new unit out within 24 hours no issues at all - which is why I just assumed that this would 'work' straight out the box and be able to easily have parent and child devices inside the same app on a single device... which you cannot. 

[MonkeyManWales]

Thank you very much for this. I was pulling my hair out trying to get this to work. Your steps worked for me. Originally my daughter just had a normal account, but fitbit said I had to sign in with child account. So I grudgingly changed it to a child account. Then it said I can't use this account for fitbit...argghh.  I didn't particularly want a separate new account just for fitbit. But I guess there's no way around it. I guess it's not like data is shared with any other accounts anyway. Just annoying I now have two family link child accounts, one new dummy one just for fitbit.... sort your crap out google/fitbit 

[aleks001]

This must have only started recently. As i did create a new account just a month or two sgo and it want working. Also this still doesnt help people whos children don't have their own device or a parent whos mobile can do multiple accounts. I returned ours and got the vivo fit jr. Best thing I did. 

[amcdbubbles]

Two Ace 3's brought from Santa for our 7 & 8 year olds. No prior knowledge that each child needed their own phone in order to set it up... they obviously don't have their own phones. I'm an android user and have had a Fitbit for years. This Google takeover has ruined it. Hours of time wasted over the past 2 days and two very upset little girls. Congratulations Fitbit on ruining multiple Christmases!!!