Allow More Fitbit Devices than Ace to Family Account

[thewarden1618]

I am frustrated that I cannot give my Fitbit blaze to my daughter and use the family account. The only device it will allow you to since is the Ace. The Blaze is far better and it would be extremely useful to her. The only way I can have her use the Blaze is to lie about her age and create a single account for her. Please allow other devices on the family account for minors. 

Moderator Edit: Title for Clarity/Added Labels

[Sthorne77]

Here it is more than a year and a half later and Fitbit has changed nothing in the way of the devices available in the family account. I really did like my Flex 2. It did what I needed. I too like many on here gave it to my 12 year old thinking we could create her an account and she could start keeping track of all the things that I liked keeping track of since one of my sons bought me a Versa for my birthday. She also wants to join the challenges I join but she’ll have to wait until her birthday. This is disappointing. She was disappointed. This is probably just a way to get us to spend more money on new devices or as one person here mentioned a way for them to collect data on my child with plausible deniability if I were to change the year of her birth so she can have an account. What other reason would there be for them to not allow hand me down devices for the family account?

[Momuv3princess]

I am furious about this too! My daughter’s wrists are too big for the ace. Plus I was interested in buying the brand new Versa 2 for $200 and giving  my daughter my charge 2. So fitbit you are losing out on a sale bc I have no excuse to buy a versa 2 now since I cannot set up my charge 2 as a child’s account I will keep it and get her a Garmin. I feel like the whole child’s account thing is totally deceitful. It should be called an ace account as that is all it is for. You need to start listening to your consumers! There are SO many options out there now a days and consumers are not brand loyal like they we were in the past!

[marco-v]

Just bought a Versa Lite for my 10yo daughter and surprisingly discovered I have to lie on her age, to create an account to her to register and sync the device.

this is very annoying and demonstrate a poor customer-oriented attitude.

i really hope Fitbit would fix this simple limitation soon!

[antikewl]

How is this still now available? Come on, Fitbit. No 10 year old wants the "baby-ish" Ace 2.

[Dddddddeeeeeeee]

Wow! I can't believe this STILL hasn't been fixed! Guess FitBit doesn't want the extra money from parents willing to buy their child a nicer tracker than Ace 2.

[Whitingj]

Please allow all your devices to be in a kid account. 

[momofboyz2]

I bought my son an Inspire for his birthday, since I knew he would not like the color options of the Ace. It is frusterating that the other fitbit versions (a lot of which are more expensive) which my son liked better than the Ace are not able to be set up as a child's fitbit. I'd love to see other fitbits allowed to be added to a child account or at the very least make the Ace available in more/better colors.

[MsBrandiLion]

Just got my 10 yo a Fitbit Versa for her birthday and am disappointed that I cannot set it up under the family account. The update that would need to happen for all Fitbit devices to be used under a family account, instead of just the ace, is so simple, I can’t believe Fitbit still hasn’t done it.

[tanusscott22]

I contacted customer service and was told their reason for not allowing other devices to the family account is due to a federal child privacy law for children under 13 when they are online. Because one of the features on the Fitbit account is “community” where anyone with an account would be able to contact your child, and view possible personal data fit bit won’t allow devices other then tha Ace. I guess the Ace has safe guards, like only being able to link to one device, and no community feature. I suggested that fit bit simply create software to password protect the community feature if the users age is under 13. I guess they didn’t want to hear that, as they hung up on me. Hmmmm.....

[ngamradt]

Since this thread has been seeing a lot of activity lately, I thought I would chime back in.

I know that for some folks on this thread, the biggest issue with the Ace 2 is that it looks childish and some older kids don't want that childish look.  After doing some research, I have realized that the Ace 2 is basically the same form-factor as the Inspire/Inspire HR.  I too was made aware that the reason the Ace 2 exists is because of the different child privacy laws.

Anyway, I have a 10 year old that I have ordered an Ace 2 for and I have ordered some alternate bands from Amazon.  If you go on Amazon, search for "Findway Compatible with Fitbit Ace 2 Bands for Kids" or "Meifox Compatible with Fitbit Inspire HR Bands".

I noticed from some online videos that if you take the Ace 2 out of the original band it had hooks for an Inspire-style band (and the options on Amazon seem to support that as well).

I have ordered a Fitbit Ace 2 and some alternate bands (should be here in about a week).  I am going to see how this works.  Really my only issues with the Ace 2 was the look of the basic bands that you have available, the device does everything my son needs.

For some I know this is about handing down old devices, so this doesn't solve that particular issue.

Anyway, I may post an update to the thread letting folks know if this plan worked out.

[InclineVlgMom]

Hey Moderator - 

Why, after a year and a half and hundreds of comments/votes is this issue not "under consideration"?

The least FitBit could do is explain to all the unhappy customers who have posted about this, 

why they are choosing to ignore the issue.

We are going to change platforms as a family.  WHY would I ever buy another FitBit product?

Garmin, here we come.

Stephanie

[SunsetRunner]

---

I contacted customer service and was told their reason for not allowing other devices to the family account is due to a federal child privacy law for children under 13 when they are online. Because one of the features on the Fitbit account is “community” where anyone with an account would be able to contact your child, and view possible personal data fit bit won’t allow devices other then tha Ace. I guess the Ace has safe guards, like only being able to link to one device, and no community feature. I suggested that fit bit simply create software to password protect the community feature if the users age is under 13. I guess they didn’t want to hear that, as they hung up on me. Hmmmm.....

---

I find this answer disturbing.

This then means that it is not possible for us adults to block/disable the community feature?
I don't want my data to be broadcasted around, and would like the possibility to disable my data being searchable for others.

The simple solution to this is:
Make it possible for ALL users to block/disable the community features, and then make this choice the default if the user is below a certain age.

Is it at all legal NOT to let users choose to disable these community features?

[JasPick]

Just walked in from buying a Fitbit for my 10yo. Heading back to the store now to return it. Garmin here we come.

[Girlypie]

I've given my 12yo my Charge 2 but will have to set him up as an adult to be able to use it - frustrating! I certainly won't be buying a new Ace for him. 

[Krizlee]

I too refuse to buy an Ace for my child when I have other devices available in the home for them to use. I understand some other devices have extra features for social media etc. that may be regulated by laws. However, since your developers have already created software specifically for children, I would think they could add in the ability to remove certain features or give parents the ability to turn these regulated features off. As other people have mentioned in this post, this will affect my future purchases and I would rather go to a different company with better support than to buy another product lacking support for my needs. While I understand some older devices may no longer be prioritized for future firmware/ software updates that really shouldn't matter because the software designed for the children side of things could be coded to address these issues. 

[lozmon85]

Im also in this situation now. My kids are 4,7 & 13.

i have just bought my youngest 2 the ace2 so they are fine.

However i already have a charge 3 special edition & just bought my husband (whos set up as a guardian in family account) a charge 3 each. As an ace isn't going to fit on a 13yo boy wrist & he would be made fun of bigtime at school having a little kids one when he already wear a means digital/analogue watch.

So now i wont be able to have my 13yo as a child account so i can’t see the same stats for him. Haven't been able to read anywhere what the minimum age is for Australia for adult account but i wanted to be able to monitor his aswell without having to sign myself out/sign into his account. Why dont you allow for a child account to be used on any fitbit device? Surely by now fitbit wouldve seen there is a demand for it. Might even get more sales or have less people lying on DOB to set kids up with the ‘adult’ fitbits

[Moto409]

I am also extremely frustrated by this lack of functionality on the family account. My daughter has a Charge HR that she got from her mom, but I can’t add that device to my family account because you can only add the Ace/Ace2 for a child. This is ridiculous. Fitbit needs to update this functionality on their app sooner rather than later!

[Garrym247]

Now they have been bought by google,

Hopefully someone will start listening to customers.

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[FluffyChicken]

Just been sent here from a other thread I was talking about this issue.

Absolutely crazy that I had to create an adult account for my child so he can use a Fitbit device and I now have no child protection available.

Hopefully Google sorts this out.

I see it's been a problem for a long time.

[FitSB]

Sadly this request has been on here for over a year.  I completely agree that the child account should not be limited to the Ace.  My child is 10, my old Alta HR is perfect for him (the Ace is too “young”).  It is so incredibly frustrating that I can’t set him up as a child account with this perfectly fine Fitbit.  I love the child feature in the app, I do not want to lie about his age and set up a full account.  I want to use the good child functionality that Fitbit designed but it’s not letting me.  Why can’t this be changed?  

[smclaflin]

This is ridiculous. 

[FitMama46]

Seriously? I cannot believe that I almost wasted $ on a Charge 2. So glad I came here first...

[Fff62]

It is sad that you have to tell your child to lie about his age to be able to use the charge 3 bought as a present. 

[CSOC]

I definitely vote yes to allowing any fitbit to be added to a family account.  My daughter is 12, taller than I am, and the ACE is not big enough for her nor does it suit her style.  She does not and will not have her own smart phone.  At least make a tween/teen version!

THANK YOU.

[WendyllanneB]

Ok so the fitbit ace and ace 2 are great for little kids but middle school kids don't want a "kids" version of anything and high schoolers don't want that either.  Family accounts should be able to link families together.  Minors should be able to have parental controlled accounts that upon adding up to "adults" would automatically convert to adult accounts but still be linked.