Integrate with iOS Health

Hi there,

 

I'm really excited about Apple's announcement of the Health App in iOS 8 to be release this fall.  I'm looking forward to seeing a product announcement by Fitbit for a successor to the recalled Fitbit Force, and I'm really hoping to hear some exciting news about Fitbits intigration with Apple's new Health App to be released alongside iOS 8 this fall.  

 

This is a huge oportunity to make your devices even smarter and more integrated - Please support these APIs!  Thanks!

 

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity and labels.

4,966 Comments
mbawkher
Recovery Runner
@Genosis

Personally I would only be willing to pay for integration as a one-off purchase, either as a paid version of the Fitbit app, or as an in-app purchase.

I would not be willing to pay a recurring fee for a feature that other fitness tracker apps provide as a basic feature. Not in this lifetime 🙂
Genosis
Stepping Up

@mbawkher

 

I do agree; as I noted the more respectable choice, and the "right" one, would be to simply do the intergration. I would be just as content with allowing attaching the Apple Watch as a device (the iPhone is permitted, oddly, but hardly ideal) but overall, of course, yes itergrate all the data. Their app collects lots of valuable information, and if anyone else did it better and had the social features FitBit does, I'd be gone in a heart BPM. (see what I did there?)

 

Kidding aside, maybe people would do the premium feature to get this, no matter how much of a duplicitous money grab it would be (and it would be pretty obvious). I'm not saying it would be right either, but it would make their premium service more appealing. I wouldn't be interested otherwise.

 

 

mbawkher
Recovery Runner

@Genosis

 

"no matter how much of a duplicitous money grab it would be" - I like this line.

 

Personally I think the number of upset users would significantly outweight the number of users who would sign up to the premium service. While adding HealthKit integration would increase the 'appeal' of the premium package, I think it would cause a 'churn' of Fitbit customers.

 

Fitbit customers who become aware of a clear 'money-grab' of charging a continuous subscription would be turned off and switch brands at the first opportunity.

I really feel that a IAP of around USD $3 for HealthKit Integration is the absolute last tactic that Fitbit could use to generate any cash from implementing this basic feature. Free integration would go a long way to generating goodwill toward the brand.

The fact of the matter is that the first post on this particular thread was almost 2 years ago and the best response Fitbit has given is 'we'll look into it'.

 

 

PKDaba
Recovery Runner

Fitbit and Sync Solver must be getting a good laugh at all the talk about paying extra for a feature that should be standard. After all, Fitbit does claim to be iOS compatible in its packaging. Most of you are here because you were deceived by Fitbit. I would not pay Fitbit an extra cent for this continuing deception especially when other companies like Garmin, Withings, Jawbone already provide seamless integration with HealthKit.

 

Fitbit excels at ignoring its customers. Instead of making your pleas here, which will be totally ignored as it’s been evident for the last 22 months, you should be directing your queries to their support line as to why they haven’t implemented this important feature. If you don’t get a satisfactory answer, take your money elsewhere.

SidS
First Steps
I returned my Fitbit Charge HR to Costco yesterday. Plan on saving my money for an Apple Watch instead. The 2nd edition comes out soon 😉
Luline62
Jogger
I wish I could take back but it was a gift.So i will wear it. I do not wear it all the time anyway .
grantybe
Stepping Up

Totally ridiculous this integation isn't here yet. And that moderator note is the lamest smoke and mirror charade I've seen in a long time. There's quite clearly a strategic business reason this hasn't been sorted. But the Fitbit product lineup just isn't versatile enough to excuse it. Even if most of the products were waterproof (and could handle swim tracking) or those without HR sensors built in could hook up to external ones when desired, for instance, I'd still want to know that all my data collected in day-to-day fitbit tracking could be worked with for bigger picture analyis (or fine-grain analysis).

 

Much as with car insurance employing GPS or cam equipment, what if health insurers starting offering discounts for those with more active lifestyles? They can't be expected to force potential clients to all buy a particular tracker or create integrations with a whole bunch of tracker manufacturers' bespoke APIs. But they could have their own app that monitored what was being pulled from them into Apple Health. Same goes for all these wonderful medical studies. There's no doubt a huge potential there.

 

But no. Fitbit head honchos want to hold onto the revenue stream from the tiny percentage of buyers that pay for Fitbit premium.

 

Or that's at least how I see all this. I could be totally wrong, but the anwsers we get here don't go anywhere near enough to explain why it hasn't yet been done so I don't feel bad for publicly speculating about the dark side of a business model.

HopefulRunner
Recovery Runner
My insurance has give back for activity. Thing of using it to get HealthKit linked scale.
JohnBez
Jogger
So sick of this thread now ongoing for 2 years... And yes as others have said, fitbit's deceptive packaging saying their devices are iOS compatible which is a lie, since there is no healthkit integration without using Sync Solver. Just because you have an iPhone app doesn't make it fully iOS compatible and my guess is... it never will be because they think they're going to compete with apple's watch with their newest devices which I've seen commercials for recently.

My anger and frustration with this company is over and done with. I bought one fitbit product, my Charge HR, because I genuinely wanted to track my sleep as well as other health data and have it be part of my overall medical record in Apple's iOS health kit. Well, it's now in my bedside drawer the battery life slowly draining out of it because I'll never wear it again! Recently a friend bought me a Microsoft Band 2, which while it's not something I would've purchased myself, it was a gift and frankly since there are "sync solver" type apps for that band to channel the data into healthkit, I'm no worse off than I was with fitbit and now I get the pleasure of not having to deal with them ever again!! I too will be saving up for the new Apple Watch one of these days but for now I'm content to use anything other than Fitbit because they're a bunch of liars.

John

Sent from my iPhone


John

Sent from my iPhone
richchips
First Steps
You'd have thought that Fitbit looked at the advantages and disadvantages of integrating with HealthKit before making the decision not to do so.

Advantages to Fitbit to integrate: they are able to sell products to people like us who will only buy products with HealthKit integration.

Disadvantages to Fitbit to integrate: there might be a greater risk that previous Fitbit owners will now be more tempted to buy non-Fitbit products, since all products would then be able to pull and push data to HealthKit. But I don't think that's actually the case, because Fitbit already allow non-HealthKit integration with other manufacturers. So I really don't understand what he disadvantage to Fitbit would be. I'd love Fitbit to tell us.

Personally, I have bought a Withings scale over a Fitbit Aria purely because Withings integrate with HealthKit and Fitbit don't. (ironically, the Withings scale talks direct to my wife's Fitbit account...) I'm now looking for a GPS watch and will *not* buy a Fitbit Surge because no HealthKit, but probably would do otherwise (because my wife has one, and it's otherwise great). So that's two sales lost, genuinely, because of Fitbit's refusal to integrate. I bet we all have similar stories.

Fitbit - you're losing sales because of this. Thousands of people actively writing on this thread, and many thousands more reading it.
Brindley75
Jogger
Richchips

Do you like your withings scale? Looking to replace my aria because of this exact issue. Haven't looked at the market for connected scales in a few years. Is withings the only other option out there? Was kind of hoping they would get cheaper.

Sent from my iPad
HopefulRunner
Recovery Runner
iHealth also makes a few scales.

I don't have any of them.
richchips
First Steps
Hi Bradley75.

Yes, I'm a big fan of the Withings WS-50. Seems accurate - putting the same weight on it twice records the same measurement, and it compares well to another set of non-connected scales. Body fat measurement is very interesting - first time I've had that. Other features feel a little gimmicky (CO2 level? why?) but they can be disabled and then become invisible.

But crucially - it syncs to Apple Health! So I can have my single set of dashboards pulling data from my phone's step counter, my scales, my GPS running apps, my heart rate monitor. Lots of sources of data, but one single place I can view the lot.

If only I could add a Fitbit to the HealthKit party... then I'd buy one, because they otherwise seem so good. (My wife has a Surge and a One)
Miltee
Jogger

I hope you are able to agree to sync with IOS Health app.  I currently have a Charge HR, and although it has more features relating to fitness and exercise than an Apple watch, I will lean towards replacing it with the Apple watch, or perhaps a different brand/product because of the lack of syncing.  I tried the Sync Solver, which did work, but I noticed some of my other apps seemed to incorrect wierd information so I deleted it.  Trying to make this work is taking too much tinkering for my taste. Along with other posters here, I'd be willing to pay for the connection, but only as a one-time charge, not an ongoing subscription.  Thanks for your consideration.

PKDaba
Recovery Runner

@Miltee, I'm curious as to how the Charge HR "has more features relating to fitness and exercise than an Apple watch". Both pieces of hardware will track steps and heart rate, many studies indicating that the Apple Watch does it more accurately on both counts than the Charge HR. In terms of hardware, the Apple Watch is able to take calls and messages, is an actual chronometer (i.e. stopwatch, timer, world time, etc.) and more.

 

I can only guess that you are referring to Fitbit's app and web portal being better than Apple's? But even then, have you looked closely at the highly customizable native 'Health' app in your iPhone? This app is actually a window to all the data that HealthKit can collect. There are gazillions of health and fitness parameters that can be tracked in one place (i.e. your iPhone) like blood pressure, blood glucose level, etc. You choose and have only the relevant fitness data displayed to your liking. Additionally, the Apple Watch has a native 'Activity' app that summarizes workout data much better than what the Charge HR will ever be able to display for you without having to look at Fitbit's app or web for your workout summaries.

 

With the Apple Watch, there are now many health, fitness, and sleep tracking related apps that you can get for your watch and iPhone to your personal liking. And they all natively sync data with HealthKit. It's hard to imagine that you'd be able to do the same with the Charge HR.

 

So, I'm not convinced of your claim that the Charge HR has more features relating to fitness and exercise than an Apple watch. If it truly does then, you'd not want to replace it with an Apple watch (a little contradictory here - just saying).

Spazyone
Jogger

Oh, my gosh. I will never buy one of your products again and am getting rid of mine. This stubborn and ridiculous stance on not making a gateway to integrate with Apple Health is ludicrous, whether or not you have or do not have more features in any particular product, we want the option to keep track of that data in Health. We want to keep track of many different things in Health, see it at a glance, and will buy products that will do so.  SMH

 

This comment is not a response to any Fitbit user but is directed to the Fitbit company.

Ekki
First Steps
Full ack! Please add health support to fitbit charge hr
Miltee
Jogger

@PKDaba, thanks for your response. I guess I spoke more from the assumption of features since I don't even know anyone with an Apple watch, and don't know the features. As I reread my post, I realized I might have been repeating something that I saw somewhere else. That's always bad (haha). In hindsight I can see that I didn't know enough to compare, so, oops, very sorry. Yes, I did mean fitness like steps, stairs, heart rate, rather than calls, time zones, or stopwatch.

Those other features and parameters in the Apple app are excellent, however as I understand it, they only display what other devices provide. I confess that I'm only moderately 'tech-y' and have had a hard time getting data from other apps to show up on the Apple Health and finding the info on Fitbit's site is simpler. My problem is probably more my own lack of tech savvy, which is why I don't like to have to spend time trying to make technology work. It's personally frustrating and is what these companies like Fitbit are supposed to do better than me. That's my rant.

I don't carry my iPhone around with me when I walk, do weights at the gym, go to bed, etc., like I see many people do, but do consistently wear my Charge HR. Hence my leaning towards eventual replacement with the Apple watch, under the assumption that I won't have to fuss with it. It however, is quite a bit more expensive, which is a plus for Fitbit.

Miltee
Jogger

I just tried to totally delete a follow up...didn't work.  I have to type something so this useless sentence is it.  sorry.

JaseAU
First Steps
2+ years and still no Health App integration...but sad really.
Look after your customers demands or your customers are going to jump ship - there are plenty of good fitness trackers available on the market these days that do sync with Apple's Health App.
SunsetRunner
Not applicable

I'm extremely disappointed that FitBit has chosen to ignore user requests to integrate with the iOS HealthKit SDK. The excuses they gave, such as feature parity between platforms, are not reasonable. Apple provided developers a great, well documented (I'm a developer) and easy-to-implement API for sharing health data and FitBit has decided not to implement it for business reasons. It's obvious the real reason FitBit doesn't want to implement HealthKit is for vendor lock-in and to sell more FitBit premium subscriptions. At this point, I'm looking for a better activity (and sleep) tracker and will no longer recommend FitBit to friends, family or colleagues.

SunsetRunner
Not applicable

This is complete rubbish that FitBit doesn't fully support iOS HealthKit. The API has been available for almost two years now. I've voted for this idea, although I know very well that FitBit doesn't really care.

 

It's obvious FitBit won't add support anytime soon but they'll keep lying and tell us "it's under consideration".

 

So now, I'm forced to look at finding third party applications that might hopefully sync everything with iOS.

ViaRoma
First Steps

When will integration with Apple Health App be released.  It's silly that it has not been done to date.  I've reached the point where getting rid of my fitbit is probable.  Withings and other fitness Apps provide that integration.  Get with it Fitbit!

shawnco
First Steps

Wish I had done more research before buying my fitbit. The lack of HealthKit integration is a big miss in my opinion. Time to get researching other fitness trackers and see which one will actually meet my expectations.

HopefulRunner
Recovery Runner
I just got an iHealth scale. It measures more data points and works with HealthKit. Here is someone else's review.

http://bodymonitorreview.com/conclusion
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