Updates to Fitbit Data Export

[BenFitbit]

Hi everyone!

My name’s Ben Ward — I joined Fitbit recently, and I’m responsible for our data management features.

I’m posting to let you know that today we’ve updated Data Export. We’ve made it easier to download your data in spreadsheet-compatible formats, in addition to your account archive. We’ve unified the separate export tools that you’ve been using since last year.

I want to take this moment to thank you all for your recent feedback about data export. You’ve helped us better understand many interesting ways in which you use your data. Especially for me personally, I've settled into Fitbit and learned about the potential of these features from your stories and descriptions. We see you, and we intend to continue to support your established uses, and help you to get the most out of your Fitbit.

Today's update is quite simple, but more data export improvements will be coming in the future; to give you more control, and make your data easier to use and understand.

Thank you again for your support and feedback. As ever, we welcome your comments and suggestions on our feature suggestion board. I encourage you to continue sharing with us, and each other, the useful things you've built with your Fitbit data.

Ben

Product Manager

[CardiganWearer]

thanks for that Ben, appreciated.

now if we could just get a download of our actual activities 😉 so we can do our own filter on activity type etc, rather than the daily summary export that is all that is available currently - suggested plenty of times over the years on the forum.

[VeganDan]

First off, I am a data geek, so this really excites me.  That said, where are the daily weighings coming from?  I exported last week's data.  I only weighed myself on two days, Sunday and Wednesday, yet I have different values for every day.  I used a smart scale on those days.

Thanks.

[definitelyguru]

Hi Ben!

I have a request for you.

I'd like to have access to all of my heart rate data, which is not available through the export feature.

On this forum https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Fitbit-com-Dashboard/Download-heartrate-data/m-p/2870018 it is said we have to contact support in order to get it.

Well, I tried, but the person I chatted with keeps referring to the Dashboard and Export features.

You could help me with this?

Thank You

Celine

[RobFitbit]

Hi Everyone!

My name is Rob, and I'm working closely with Ben on our Data Export project. 

@CardiganWearer Thanks for your feedback! If you have a few minutes, we'd love for you to elaborate further in a post on our feature suggestion board. We'll be regularly reviewing the board to better understand what our customers are looking for with data export. 

@VeganDan We're glad to hear you're excited about viewing your data! I'll get back to you with that answer. In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to our customer support team at contact.fitbit.com if you notice any data inconsistencies. 

@definitelyguru Great question. Your heart rate data is available when you Export Your Fitbit Archive. Once your data export is ready, you can download a zip file that contains several heart rate files. If you have any questions after reviewing your data, please reach back out to our customer support team. 

Thanks for your great questions everyone. We're looking forward to sharing more improvements with you!

Rob

[CardiganWearer]

---

@RobFitbit wrote:

Hi Everyone!

My name is Rob, and I'm working closely with Ben on our Data Export project. 

@CardiganWearer Thanks for your feedback! If you have a few minutes, we'd love for you to elaborate further in a post on our feature suggestion board. We'll be regularly reviewing the board to better understand what our customers are looking for with data export. 

---

some people want heart rate data etc but personally I would like to see an export of each activity with a date stamp and the related data (eg distance, time, heart rate etc). This way I can see all my runs, or swims etc, and compare speed, heart rate etc over time for, say, runs over a certain distance. You can't even filter by activity type on the web dashboard but that is a different issue.

you could pop over to these:

this one started in 2016:

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Exporting-Workouts-Activity-History/idi-p/118947...

plenty more on the suggestion board if you go looking:

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Export-RAW-data/idc-p/3267042#M202589

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Workout-Filter/idc-p/3293663#M203806

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Full-data-export-as-demanded-by-GDPR/idi-p/27388...

plus the numerous times it has been suggested in other forums besides the suggestion board.

[MaxMaxMax]

I requested and received an archive of my data as json. In the resting_heart-rate-<date>.json file there is a field called "error" in each record (one per day). Does anyone know what  this means? I tried emailing Fitbit support and they had no idea (I don't even think they know what I was asking).

Anyway, here's a typical record:

{
    "dateTime" : "12/15/18 00:00:00",
    "value" : {
        "date" : "10/15/18",
        "value" : 61.05270417895508,
        "error" : 8.661454222744629
}

Thanks!

[RobFitbit]

@CardiganWearer Thanks for providing more context, and for sharing the other relevant feature suggestions. It's helpful to know what you're looking for as we plan additional improvements. 

@MaxMaxMax I'm sorry to hear that customer support couldn't answer your question. I'll talk to the engineering team and try to find out the answer for you. In the meantime, I've escalated your customer support case to a different agent that will be in touch soon. We'll reach out to you directly if we have further questions. 

[Winnie10]

So, I received the download of my archive but have no clue how to view the data in the files?  They seem to have the file extension json so how can I open these files and look at the data?  I want to be able to view the data in Excel, so don't understand why they don't download as csv files?

Edit - I figured it out but the formatting is terrible so the files are pretty much unuseable.  I was hoping to be able get details of recorded activities without having to page back through the list on the website, but obviously not.  This could be an amazing feature, but unfortunately, it's not.

[BenFitbit]

Hi @Winnie10 — which data are you trying to view?

Currently, you can download your body, food, activity and sleep information in CSV for use in spreadsheet applications — you can download this from the top of the export page. We are considering making more data available in this form, so understanding which data is most important to you would be really useful to help us prioritise.

Thanks,

Ben

[ChrisBoBMMS]

I've seen a couple other threads that talk about this, but I figured a post by a FitBit person would probably be most appropriate.

I'm used to working with lots of different types of data (including json).  I'll repeat the call for being able to filter the downloaded data (for those of us with data experience).  Even if it were just a date filter and maybe which tables/files you wanted (like, I only want the "calories" files since January 1)
More importantly, could we get a dictionary of the fields in each of the files?

Of particular interest to me right now is the "demographic" files.

What's the difference between "demographicVO2Max" and "filteredDemographicVO2Max"?

Many of the fields make sense, but it would be helpful to have something more official.

[BenFitbit]

Hi @ChrisBoBMMS. Broadly in agreement with everything you say there, and we agree about the utility of the filter functions and being able to work with the data more easily (in both formatting and documentation.) I can't make you a specific promise about when improvements will land, but we understand the usefulness of it.

I've made enquiries with our team who handle the VO2 Max features to get an answer about the difference between “filtered” and not.

Thanks,

Ben

[lizalex12345]

Hello,

I need to be able to access my heart rate data from the beginning of 2019 for a medical issue.

I have tried the data export tool, but this exports into a .json file, and I cannot find a way to make this work. 

Export my fitbit data does not show heart rata data, so I cannot use that.

I have searched and found that there should be a message saying "If you would like to use the old data export tool click here."   However I cannot see this so I guess it no longer works.

Please can someone help me access my own data, either with a easy way to view the .json files, or maybe fitbit can send me the data directly.

Thank you

[korsac]

Dear,

I am planning on buying a few fitbit Charge 3 devices for our workers in order to check several parameters regarding their activity per day (for example floors climbed). I would need to be able to export the "floors climbed" to an excel file. I see this can easily be done through settings, data export but this automatically presents the total data per day. Is there a way to export the "floors climbed" data per hour or per minute as this is shown in the dashboard?

Thanks

[ChrisBoBMMS]

@BenFitbit , Thank you for the response.  Just a customer service tip:  It would be nice to see progress... how long would it really take to start with just a single help page of the files that are exported.... then build as it goes.  I was surprised that I couldn't even find information in the API development area.

[CardiganWearer]

---

@korsac wrote:

Dear,

I am planning on buying a few fitbit Charge 3 devices for our workers in order to check several parameters regarding their activity per day (for example floors climbed). I would need to be able to export the "floors climbed" to an excel file. I see this can easily be done through settings, data export but this automatically presents the total data per day. Is there a way to export the "floors climbed" data per hour or per minute as this is shown in the dashboard?

Thanks

---

you need to be aware "floors climbed" is not to be taken literally.

fitbit trackers use a sort of altimeter to "calculate" "floors"

I get floors climbed all the time and I never do them. Outdoor activity will give you floors climbed.

you can even get floors climbed while asleep.

plenty of threads on it in these forums

[Mick173]

Ben I wonder why fitbit even consider data management when the initial data is rubbish in the first place. I have a versa and the HR's it records are absolute rubbish, doubles the HR against my chest monitor. So garbage going in and as HR is used for calorie calculations etc garbage coming out. I've raised this with support and provide a lot of information for comparison but no updates.

[Bosco253]

One very simple request - Please allow use of the old data download. That worked. This new method does not do it for me. I cannot even access my data now. 

[michael.bodhi]

Hey Ben,

is it possible to export data of group interaction data (not activity data)? Concretely I am interested in the group interaction data, e.g. number of post within a time frame, numer of likes and comments on a post.

Best,

Michael

[Effectsman]

Dan, you company should really get their act together. Going to my fitbit log and to the food page I attempted to get a report.  It sent me to a page that stated that my premium subscription had expired, on clicking on the renew button I was taken to a signup page for Coach, which stated that is included premium!  So I signed up paying the same as I have in previous years for premium.  I received a confirmation email and a button to activate, which I did.  I then went back to my account and still no ability to make a report.  I called your support, my case was sent onto a different dept that supposedly handled with such matters, no positive contact from that mystery dept.  I called again almost a week later, very pleasant person went back to the mystery dept and after a wait she returned to tell me that you no longer supported premium.  Thankfully she understood the new menu item on the setting page.

It is still showing as part of the software on my computer and yes I did reload the page.  Fitbit should really look into their customer service because it is extremely frustrating,   I now have to wait for a refund of my coach subscription, for who knows how long. My case # 29529138