Charge 3 setup for child

[Busymum07]

We have bought our son a Charge 3 for his birthday (lucky lad) but when we try to set it up it says it has to be set up by an adult so I put my details in. It says you can then set up your family account and add a child. I did that but the only thing it will let me pair with is a Fitbit Ace which is not what we have. Can’t find anything that tells me how to set up a charge 3 for a child, help!

Moderator edit: subject

[Birdy21]

We have just bought a FITBIT charge 3 for our 10 year old daughter (also lucky girl) with NO statements about the product for minors.   Very frustrating and completely misleading by FITBIT.   My advice DONT buy FITBIT.   

[LindaYGK]

You can do it but must change actual age.  I could not believe the marketing info was not clear. Good luck 

[burnbabybyrne]

You can do it as long as the child has their own phone to use the app, or you don’t mind the child using your phone for app access and you don’t mind the health data from your phone being commingled with the child’s exercise data and vice versa. Of course, if you have your own Fitbit already, then you can’t really share the app with the child anyway.

Simple answer: Fitbit, make your family app capability work with all of your devices.

[LindaYGK]

Actually it works with his own iPad so no co-mingling of data required. Set up is a major pain and marketing should be more clear.

Moderator edit: personal info removed

[Birdy21]

Ok for the benefit of my apology can you please show me when it specified
not appropriate for minors? If that is the case happy to retract my
statement. One thing for sure when it was sold to us it definitely was
not specified

[Birdy21]

And judging by the
Long list of complaints over the same issue it looks like I am not the only
one

[Govtlawyer]

So...  just had my daughter open her birthday present an hour ago - a Fitbit inspire - to find out for the first time in the purchasing process that it won’t work with my daughter because she is under 13.  There was no mention of this on the product packaging or even in the marketing material.  This is a breach of UK and EU law.  Further, restricting your products in this way may breach EU competition law.  Get yourselves better in-house legal advice, stop behaving like tech bros and start maturing into a proper company.  I am now left having to console my daughter because of yet another US tech company’s failure to conform to international standards on the sale of goods.  (Yes, avoid Jaybird products too, they won’t honour their international warranty unless you live in the US).

[burnbabybyrne]

@LindaYGK Good to know. Thanks. 

[PieterGeert]

And here another disappointed daughter...

[arooj]

I'm returning both for my kids too - hate to find out after buying that charge 3 requires an adult account.

[RoganSA]

This is an absolute shocker! No one wants the community features. We want to train and see our progress - same as our kids. This is an App issue not being able to turn off the social feature elements. NOT a government issue. Completely ridiculous. I’ve been a Garmin person my whole athletic life and was warned about FitBit. But the slim line device tempted me into buying one for my son. Anyway, lesson learned - NEVER buy FitBit devices and make sure all those who are athletic (rather than social) and want their kids to be, also steer clear of this company. Agree. I think it’s hilarious that they mark it as solved.......!!! Just shows the lack of customer understanding. Just go Garmin and stay Garmin......

[RoganSA]

This is the most ridiculous thing

ive heard....

just build a feature in the app to turn off social.....

crazy that you are chasing an entire market away by refusing to solve the problem.....

[Cfhell]

When oh when will fitbit fix this? Almost 2 yrs and still nothing. Just allow any type of fitbit device to be linked- not just limit it to an Ace or Ace 2. My less than 13yr old needed a waterproof device, but the Ace 2 comes across as too young. She now has a Charge 3. Only discovered this limitation when attempting to add the device to her child account today (xmas day). So like others, I’ve dodgied her yr of birth. Not ideal at all, but what else can i do? Return it? This is actually insane from fitbit. Allow any device to be linked to the family account and let the parent control what aspects the child has access to.

[Red1980]

Just had the same problem with setting up a charge3 for my nearly 12 year old. He needed one that was swim proof and was really good for tennis as well. It is just a software issue on the app and would be so simple to fix even my teenager could code it. Please Fitbit sort this out as for now I won't be able to set it up with his  actual age. The Ace and Ace 2 are just far too young and far too simple. They're more suited more to  6 to 10 year old.

[JohnDixon300]

Same problem here.  There is no marking on the packaging to suggest this cannot be used by a child. Even more ridiculous that you cannot simply disable problematic features, that’s just poor application design.

[GFru]

The most ridiculous thing to find out the day after xmas, trying to setup for my 10yr old daughter. WTF! I have no idea how the decision was arrived at to make a specific device group only available to kids... and then not advertise, or advise retailers that the device won't allow it to be activated with a family member account marked as a child.

When my wife suggested that we get a Fitbit I said "why would you want to do that", her reply was "all her friends have them"... now I wonder how that works because as far as I'm concerned the whole experience has been crap, and the device is crap, and the company is crap!

[hcarl]

So what do you do when you buy a 9 year old this watch take it back and get an I watch

[hcarl]

How do I delete this account and take this back

or set him up with a fake DOB using same email address

SO ANNOYING

[Zeppedy]

I'm in IT and laughed my butt off at this.  This is nuts.  I've had to make my 13 year old 20, so he's quite small and weighs a lot less than an 18 year old does, but at least his fitbit works.

[SCARALABACAS]

The point is: Why haven't including the age restrictions on the box???

We wouldn't buy it if I know my kids can't use it. 🙁