Make the Ace live up to expectations (and WORKABLE!) for kids

[JeanneMcFish]

We bought 2 Aces since we have been a fitbit family and were excited to do races with our kids. But these are basically worthless based on the way they function. It takes 15 minutes to get into each account, get logged out each time, sync while in the kids view, get logged out AGAIN, log back in, log into second kid's account where we are LOGGED OUT FOR A THIRD TIME, log back in, go to second kid's account, and log back in to the parent's account. 

ALL SYNCING SHOULD TAKE PLACE FROM THE PARENT'S ACCOUNT! And all info should be available there, without switching to kids' view. Kids' view should only be necessary when handing the phone to the child.

We read this: https://blog.fitbit.com/fitbit-for-kids/ where it says:

    1 - parents will be able to see information concerning calories burned, etc.

    2 - the account will grow with the kids 

    3 - the bands can quickly be adjusted for a perfect fit.

    4 - Kids can compete against their family in daily and weekend Challenges or via Family Faceoff

    5 - Your kid doesn’t need a smartphone.

But, in reality: 

     1 - The blog post says, "Some stats are restricted. Certain health and fitness metrics—like body fat, weight, and calories burned—that are available to adults will not be shown to kids." However, parents only see a view similar to that of any other friend -- NO STEP OR OTHER INFORMATION. The only way to see any information is to be logged out by turning to the kid view. While, rereading this shows the author may have just meant "any adult for their OWN account," this is not clear and certainly not what is expected when one is trying to determine whether a child's purchase would be valuable. Someone needs to rewrite this blog post for this and multiple reasons. 

     2 - There are multiple posts in the community that say a child will need to start an entirely new account when they age out of these restrictions.

     3 - The band barely fits around my (THIN!) 9-year-old's wrist. There needs to be another size. As it is on the last hole I am afraid it will fall off and lose it. I admit we come from a family of big-boned giants, but there is not an ounce of fat on this kid (and, supposedly, wrist size is not related to body fat.)

     4 - Kids can NOT compete against everyone else, because their bands do not sync unless the parent goes back and forth between multiple accounts. This has resulted in my kids getting upset because they cannot see in real time how they are doing against other members of the family. 

     5 - The app doesn't work on an Amazon Fire. While I feel we are LUCKY to have a Fire for each kid, the amount of money required to get anything else for our family is ridiculous. Obviously, each child needs their own device for this to work. This either needs to be fixed, or this blog post needs to be updated. 

We have been lied to and taken advantage of. My kids were so excited and these devices have greatly decreased the whining when told we would be walking somewhere instead of taking the car. But the amount of frustration has NOT been worth it.

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hello @JeanneMcFish.

Thanks for sharing your feedback and thoughts on the matter. 

Please know that we take all comments like this seriously and we are always looking for ways to improve the overall Fitbit experience.

If there is anything I can assist you with, please let me know.

[Rich_Laue]

If the parents phone has all day sync on. then the ace will sync through the app while logged into the parents account .

[denayoyo]

Nope. I have all day sync on. My kids fitbit will not sync unless I open his account in the app.

[JeanneMcFish]

The blog post has not been changed and someone else (you) has edited my comments. For someone who wants to "help" you are making it very easy for other people to be duped. To the "Legend" who says it will sync all day on the parent's account, that is wrong, at least for iOS, unless you don't sync your own fitbit. 

[JuanJoFitbit]

@denayoyo @JeanneMcFish I'm sorry for the late response! I want to follow up on your cases and would like to know if the issues persist or if your Fitbit trackers sync properly even if you don't have to open the app.

See you guys later! 

[denayoyo]

No, the only account that will sync automatically is the last account that was open in the app. In order  for the other accounts to sync, I have to open the app and switch users to make each account the one that is visible and wait for it to sync before switching to the next account. With one parent and 2 children, this takes way too long.