Switching from kid to parent view

[Roni_S]

When in kid view and you want to switch back to parent view, you need to enter a password and then instead of actually switching you back, it completely logs the parent out of the Fitbit app!  Why require a password if you then have to log back in again with email and password from scratch?!

Moderator edit: subject format

[Chelbylu22]

How do I view my sons sleep from parent view?

[HappyGirlMary]

I have deeply regretted buying my son the Ace.  And any and all interactions with Fitbit.  I have never been so disregarded as a consumer.  It is disappointing.  

[Chelbylu22]

Yeah it’s been unbelievably difficult. So sad
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Thank you,
Michel

Moderator edit: removed personal info

[DavideFitbit]

Thank you for all your comments @JeanneMcFish, @Pixelscapes, @HappyGirlMary, I've seen that you've been providing some great feedback about how the interactions between parent and kid view happens, at the moment we haven't received new updates to know if the family account procedures will be modified in the future, but we do appreciate all the comments and ideas you have shared to try to make the whole user experience more friendly. Make sure to always keep the Fitbti app updated to the latest version available. 

@Chelbylu22, both you and your child should be able to see all the daily stats including sleep under kid view in the Fitbit app, you can follow the steps listed here. 

I hope this helps. 

[JeanneMcFish]

Kid view doesn’t show me anything either. Is it because I need to sync on my phone? (I mean, even the synced data, not just the stuff that hasn’t synced yet.) We’ve gotten to the point where we don’t bother anymore and the kids just get excited about the steps on their watch. Should have purchased a much cheaper pedometer.  

[DavideFitbit]

Thank you for the details @JeanneMcFish, I'm sorry to see you've been having trouble with the app. Could you please confirm if you're still not able to see any data at all when using kid view? 

In the meantime, please try to logout from the Fitbit app, restart the phone and log back in; then check if you're able to see previous data recorded by the tracker. In the other hand, the information that hasn't been synced will not be displayed in the user dashboard. 

Please keep me posted. 

[Chelbylu22]

I agree . It blows my mind how poor the Fitbit ace platform is. So
disappointing for a company that had such a great rep and adult product
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Thank you,

Moderator edit: removed personal info

[JuanJoFitbit]

@Chelbylu22 I'm so sorry about the experience you've had. Your feedback is greatly appreciated since this helps us to keep improving.

[dietcokechic]

Hi David,

im really new to using the Fitbit app, and I’m guessing you might have heard this from others, but the interaction between a child and parent account is a really poor user experience. First, it simply didn’t work. I signed my son up, created a profile and it took me forever to figure out how to switch to his account! I just wanted to click on my Alta image on the left and switch to his. Nope. Or click on the profile icon on the right and have a quick way to switch from there. Nope.

i finally figured out where to find the “switch” in my son’s profile detail, but the link didn’t work as expected and the app would just spin endlessly and I’d swipe out only to have to completely login later.  That was fixed with the update.

so now,I can get to my son’s profile just find, but I can’t switch tech back to mine, because Fitbit didn't follow basis UX design and keep the buttons in the same place. Geeze! Once logged into the child’s profile, I should see the same badge with “switch to parent view” in the same place where it shows up on the parent’s profile. Not on a different page in a different location (and a location I had to scroll to just to locate).  Please pass this along to the designers. I love Fitbit! I just wish there was better integration and usability between accounts. It took me two hours to sort things out when all I really needed/wanted was to update the time zone so my son saw the correct time on his device.

Thanks for listening.

Moderator edit: format

[JuanJoFitbit]

@dietcokechic Welcome to our Fitbit Community! I understand how frustrating this is for you and I truly appreciate your feedback about the process you need to follow when switching from your kid's view to yours. This helps us to keep improving.

Don't hesitate to get back if you need further assistance!

[JayNeil14]

You keep saying that you "appreciate the feedback."  Do something about the feedback.  It reminds me of the old Seinfeld joke:  "You know how to take a reservation (for a restaurant), but you don't know how to keep the reservation."

[JuanJoFitbit]

@JayNeil14 Our team is aware of the comments provided and once we have updates, we'll make sure to post it here.

[csripriyan]

asking for password is really annoying. I changed my password to something like aaaaaaaa 🙂

Previously i had a strong password like $u7HJ#id  

[JuanJoFitbit]

@csripriyan I'm sorry about the experience about the password. Your feedback and comments are greatly appreciated. This helps us to keep improving.

[JamesHumbers]

I’m a long time Fitbit user and fan who just bought Ace for my two kids for XMas. I’m just adding a +1 to the many observations about how painful it is to manually change from my view to Kid A then back to parent view then to Kid B then back to parent view. The kids are really excited about them and want an update on various challenges ever few hours but it takes five minutes and all that fiddling just to do that. 🙁

Several people have suggested adding TouchID and FaceID. That would be better. Even better would be making the whole password thing an option that can be turned off. 

Even better tban than that would be the ability to just swipe between Family dashboards. And for the auto sync to work with all family devices all

at once without having to change Dashboard at all...

As it is, it’s just incredibly badly designed at the moment - tho the kids do love the Aces...

[HeroBoy]

Why do you even need a password to switch back and forth between views? Can we have an option to disable it? I'm sure 99.99% of users would select that option.

[Julia_G]

Hi, @HeroBoy, without a password protect on the parent account a child could access it and view private information as well as making changes to the parent's account.  This would remove the point of the family account, which is to protect kids on line and therefore probably would not meet legal requirements.  I do not think it is likely that this option will be added.

[csripriyan]

@Julia_G I have facebook, utility payment apps, social media apps and so on on my phone. None of them ask for password repeatedly..its a one time affair. Its just that you have to keep your phone password protected and keep away from your kids. I would never give my phone to my children or anyone else for that matter.

Does fitbit expect the parent to share the phone with the kids so that they can see their progress and stats? If so, it is a bad design decision. Kids should be able to have the app on their own phones and separate web login as well. As a parent I should be able to see their steps and other details from within my app.

Maybe, its just that Fitbit does not want to add more accounts ( cost reasons? ) for Ace users and try to use the existing parent's accounts. So obviously it was not in the original design and it is being retrofitted hence it turned out to be bad user experience !

[Pixelscapes]

csripriyan, you're right that kids can have the app on their own phones... if they have one. But the problem most in this thread are struggling with is when you have one phone and multiple Fitbits -- as it says in the thread title, then you have to switch views.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a problem of false advertising:
"Fitbit’s new family account feature makes it easy to see everyone’s progress while keeping information private." 

It's not "easy" to see everyone's progress. You can't actually see the kid's progress at all without laboriously switching views.... you can't even synchronize from the parent view. 

Yes, I know Fitbit wants to keep the parents' data and settings away from the kids... But even in that case, why not allow the parent, in parent view, to do all this without logging in/out repeatedly:

• synchronize all devices
• see all the kids' data
• change kids' settings and alarms

It's not like there should be any privacy concern with the parent seeing the kid's data and settings!

[Julia_G]

Hi, @csripriyan, I am sure there were a lot of possible ways to design this.  However, given the design choices Fitbit has made, the child account is a subset of the parent account.  So even if kids have their own phone, the parent account would need to be password protected.

I agree with @Pixelscapes that this works more smoothly if the kids have their own phones / tablets -- it works more simply because kids can be permanently logged in to Kid View and parents can keep logged in to parent view.

I also agree with you, with @Pixelscapes and with others that it would make sense for parents to be able to see kids steps without laborious switching.  I was simply responding to the question of opting out of password protection -- I am pretty sure that that is not a change Fitbit will be able to make.

However, the Family Account set up, and the kids' Fitbit Ace is a fairly new venture for Fitbit and I know that they are closely monitoring parents' views on how it is working and what improvements can be made, so it is great that you are keeping ideas flowing and letting Fitbit know what you like and don't like, amd how it could work better.

If you have any specific ideas for improvements these can be added to the Feature Suggestion Forum.  The moderators regularly feed back ideas from there to the engineering team.  The more votes / comments, the more likely a suggestion is to be implemented.

Tip: if you are thinking of making a suggestion, it is always a good idea to check first if someone else has already suggested the same idea.  That way you won't be splitting the votes.