Alta not supported in Child View

[AiyanaC]

I am trying to setup my Child account. I’m happy that this feature is now available. However my children have Alta fitbits not Ace Fitbit. Can you please add Alta into this feature as well, or is there a workaround?

[Rich_Laue]

The Alta is not designed to meet the requirements of the COPPA requlations. That is why a child needs to be over 13 to use the Alta. I assume that your children are over 13 and that they already have there own Fitbit accounts. 

[AiyanaC]

Thanks for your reply. Those requirements weren’t clear when we purchased the FitBits, so that is very unfortunate. We have yet to setup accounts, so we will have to figure out some type of solution.

[Bagsy1981]

I have the same problem. I purchased an Alta hr for my child and can’t setup an account for him. He is 10yrs old ...so does this mean the device can’t be used??

[Rich_Laue]

That is correct @Bagsy1981 the Ace is designed to conform to the federal  COPPA regulations  

The Alta HR like the Alta is not available to those under 13. If you where told otherwise when purchasing, you may want to try and return it .

[JuanJoFitbit]

@AiyanaC @Bagsy1981 Welcome to our Fitbit Community! My friend @Rich_Laue is totally correct. The Fitbit tracker that can be used by children is the Fitbit Ace. Please check out this page for more information about this tracker.

Let @Rich_Laue and me know if you guys have more questions! 

[johnnyg768]

Yea just bought 3 Altas because we couldn’t find the ace and everything I read seemed like they were the same thing except for a half inch smaller band and my kids could all wear the larger band.  Anyways, I’m going to use it without the app for my kids.  Wanted to use this with my kids and my charge 2... was excited for my new charge 3 that hasn’t been opened yet, but it’s going back.  This is ridiculous and Fitbit got my $300 but lost a customer for life.  Their UI is horrible.  Setting up a kid account is horrendous.  It kept erroring and then I ended up with like 8 accounts because they weren’t actually erroring just throwing error codes.  I can delete them in a week, but can’t use them anyways because they are Altas.  Any device should be able to be used for kids.  Even with a 13 yr old.  Obviously I needed to research more because here I am completely regretting my purchases with this company!  Oh well, Merry Christmas!  

[Conzumer]

It's beyond ridiculous. Bought these altas as Christmas gifts and my kids are eagerly waiting on me to set their accounts up. And I'm looking up forums to somehow salvage the situation. Merry Christmas fitbit!

[Junk530]

Here. Let me fix this for you. Make your kid 13.. bang works. Now invite them to your account as associate. Done. 

Its a legal thing but as my kids legal guardian I accept the contract and say they are 13. Done. 

[Junk530]

Though I did have the same issue and think there instructions are vague at best. I just thought, ok they need to be 13 to work with the Alta HR’s we got them? Poof, the kids are all now 13. There I fixed it...

is is kind of dumb they can’t make it work. How much programming can it really take? 

[Rich_Laue]

It might be that Fitbit can not make it work and still be compliant with COPPA regulations.

[johnnyg768]

To be clear, my complaint is far different than the regulation.  I merely do not want my kids to have full access on the app.  Plain and simple.  That’s a dad thing not a regulation thing.  I want to be able to restrict my kids and not give them a full user access into the Fitbit community while still being able to share as a family.  This seems like an extremely simple request as an end user of this product, irregardless of regulations and independent of the hardware version.  

[Rich_Laue]

It sounds like your asking for an Ace?

[johnnyg768]

Yes, I wish I’d have known that in order to use that simple software restriction, I needed the smaller hardware Ace.  It doesn’t matter.  I’ll try to return them or take a loss selling it on the gray market and get an Ace or just use the op to switch to Garmin.  

[Rich_Laue]

Garmin slap has a tracker and account designed for children. Please remember that their adult trackers will also not attach to the children's account.

[ThomasRedstone]

These are words that have been written.

But they make no sense.

The device counts steps, measures heart rate and send that data to Fitbit.

Surely the child protection aspect is entirely within the app and on Fitbit servers?

[Rich_Laue]

Since i am not aware of all the regulations and precautions that Fitbit has to adhere to. I am unable to respond. 

I do know the Alta collects more data then the Ace does. 

[ThomasRedstone]

Does it? From what I could see they're the same device. They both use the
same 3 axis gyroscope.
Sure, there is an Alta with a heart rate sensor, but from what I can tell
the Alta and Ace are the same device and the only data either can capture
is motion.

[johnnyg768]

As an update, my kids never used the app anyways. Challenges didn’t offer any real value for them other than maybe the one or two initial times we tried. We ended up manually comparing data verbally, and even that barely took. All 3 kids devices stopped working within the first few months after owning, probably just due to the abuse they endured in Fitbit’s defense. Mine still works. The entire kid experience just isn’t there though, it’s obvious kids were an afterthought to the adult experience and it makes for a confusing consumer experience.

Fitbit really needs to go back to the drawing board for kids, and provide a product to invoke interest and make fitness fun for kids and families. This isn’t that.

[TedHoward]

The issue is a legal problem. The problem with children using an online service is data and identity. A child's (<13yr) data receives, within the US, extra protection under the law. If the data cannot be linked to any identity there's no way to know if it is a child's data. If it is a child's data it must be handled in a separate manner which can be very restrictive. It only matters once it gets to a database not physically controlled by the child/parent. If that last were false then Nintendo would be in serious trouble.

Fitbit hardware is a way to record and transmit data to the mobile app. Ace & Alta record motion data. Heartbeat data is no different from motion data in relation to child privacy issues - it's just personal data. The mobile app sends data to fitbit servers. The only way data reaches fitbit servers is via the mobile apps.

At some point between sensors and fitbit servers, the data from an Ace is treated differently than the same data from an Alta. Unless Fitbit engineers are incompetent then all data is linked to the device that recorded it and to the user identity associated with that device at that time. Whatever happens differently for children using an Ace can be applied to the equivalent data from an Alta. The change is from "If Ace then it's a child's data" to "If Ace or identity age <13yrs then it's a child's data".

I have a degree in computer engineering. I can design a microchip. I have shipped games on xbox, pc, facebook, android google, android amazon, ios, osx, windows phone, windows store, and likely more I've forgotten. I cannot imagine what Fitbit could tell me that would make me understand why a child using an Alta is more difficult to legally manage than a child using an Ace.

Watch what you say here. Fitbit has deleted almost all of my replies on this topic. I suspect I know why, but if I say why I expect this will also be deleted. It's literally a Catch-22 ... well maybe "literaturely" a Catch-22. (My worst pun every I think.)