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

[Red85285]

It would be great to allow other devices to link to a kid account. I don't see why the developers couldn't turn off settings on the device that conflict with child safety laws. The other option would be to make a better kids device. I loved the Garmin kids device that I bought for my daughter! It lasted over a year, didn't need to charge every couple days and was waterproof, all the things that I would want in a kids device. But their interface sucked! I hated it! So got her the Ace, and I hate it more, we always forget to charge it or leave it on the charger. We miss place it often since it isn't waterproof etc. I would love to do family challenges and stuff but the Ace needs to be thrown out and replaced by a much better model! Now I had to make her a regular account and go back and forth logging into the accounts to sync them.

[AndyP99]

2 years and no solution! 

The product ownership and commercial strategy is out of touch with the consumer!

We have just bought a fitbit aspire device for our 9yr old son, low and behold, we discover a 2yr old blocker has come to our attention and now have to fudge the process so that we don't have a disappointed son but introduce a risk with our son now being exposed to the social networking.

Well done fitbit for shifting liability to the parents and not applying a little brain power to figure out a simple solution to the problem and ultimately protect the children of your prospective customers!

Very disappointed to say the least! 

[DaniTilley]

As an app developer myself I don't understand why you would limit the types of devices allowed on the child accounts.  I was actually really happy with the adult account required to set up my son's Charge 3 -- a hand me down as my husband recently upgraded to a new Charge 4.  In the end I fudged his birthday slightly (he is 12 so not much) in order to let him track his step counts and HR the same as the rest of the family. The next time our family upgrades a track we will seriously be looking at the competition over this.  

[QualinCarter]

I love this idea. I had plans to get my boyfriend a Fitbit ionic to match the one that I already have for his birthday in July so we can link it to the family account, didn't know that wasnt possible until now. 

Hopefully you guys can make this happen 😊

[BrattyChef]

🤔Completely baffled that they still haven't addressed this. Went to set up family account for hubby and I only to discover that I couldn't due to not having a child to add. Very frustrating to learn that we aren't considered worthy of being called "a family" by Fitbit. 😕

[AthenasUniverse]

Here we are in the middle of a pandemic, and this is still a “pending” item two years on... I would like my child to move more during this unfortunate pandemic that has forced him to stop his sports and school, playtime with friends, and he is motivated to compete with me using Fitbit. I still have my old Flex, which he was super excited to have... and it irks me that Fitbit expects user to just simply buy a new watch. Clearly I am not the only user who finds this absolutely absurd and extremely “big company”. If I could afford an Ace 2 or Ace, I would get it (or maybe if it had more incentives like the Garmin for kids...), but hey, I’m currently stuck at home with a suddenly inactive child... and for his health and sanity, and mine, would just simply like to add my old Flex for my child and create a child acct. just to track his steps and compete/motivate with me. 

I highly doubt you will even see or bat an eye at this, but I think it is all just a shame... Wake up! Look at the bigger picture! You could help a lot of people...

[disapointedkid]

Over the last few days I did some research on the best tracker I can get for my kids 8 and 11. I specifically tried to see if there was any reason an Inspire HR would not work for my kids, guess I did not search hard enough. Bought two of them today only to discover this evening that I can't create kid accounts for them! Ridiculous, this should be made more obvious in the specs of the devices. Going to have to return them!

[Leanna02]

I chose to purchase a inspire HR for my children because I want the Heart Rate feature to access the much need relaxation feature.  The Ace does not offer relaxation.  The inspire is the same size, offers more features and is the same price as the ace!  They are also over 10 and I think they will outgrow the ace, it seems more designed for younger kids.  They are too young for a fitbit account.  Unfortunately I can not create a child account with the inspire.  Why is that?  I should be able to choose the device for my child and give them a child account.  This seems like a simple fix, more device pairings just needed to be added.  The ace 2 was added surely others can be added.  Not all children will want an ace.  

[mcgeheeks]

I just spent 30 minutes explaining to my child that it is NOT OK to lie about her age...only to find out I have to go back and say, "Oh, well in THIS situation, we are going to have to tell a lie". Grrr...She kept telling me she was embarrassed about having a "kid account" but I stuck to my beliefs. and made her put in the correct information. Now we are stuck because I come to find out she can only have an ACE or ACE 2. You've gotta be kidding me! I had no idea there would be a problem buying my children the Inspire HR. I want them to have the ability to use the HR feature to relax. When I came here to the comments, I found I am not alone. I am ABSOLUTELY floored by the fact that this situation has not been resolved by Fitbit. Next time we upgrade, my entire family will chose another brand.

[TFAustin]

In the same boat—I just bought my son an Inspire and he doesn’t have his own device to use the app. So now we are stuck and angry.

[mcgeheeks]

I found an article that might help. Of course I've already given up and lied about my kid's age, but maybe it will help someone else. Click on the link that says "When can my child upgrade..."

https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2347/?q=my+family+doesn%27t+show+up+in+my+app&l=... 

To Fitbit- THIS SHOULD NOT BE THIS HARD!

[mcgeheeks]

Update:

Sorry- Go to "How does my child..."

I found an article that might help. Of course I've already given up and lied about my kid's age, but maybe it will help someone else. Click on the link that says "When can my child upgrade..."

https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2347/?q=my+family+doesn%27t+show+up+in+my+app&l=... 

To Fitbit- THIS SHOULD NOT BE THIS HARD!

[Unswede]

Hello!
I got a FitBit Versa Lite for my 8 year old son, but registering it, im running into troubles since you seem to have restricted children to the Ace line.
Please let us make our own decisions on how we want to use your products and remove this annoyance.

[Odyssey13]

Hi @Unswede   due to laws across the world, children are prohibited from having an online account and using these devices. The Ace series was made especially to allow children six and up to use these services. Fitbit is abiding by those laws. Lying about the age is the only solution, but would create a problem since the algorithms are made based on gender, age, height and weight. So that would give completely wrong data for your child. 

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @Unswede, thanks for explaining why you would like to have the option to allow more Fitbit devices than Ace to Family Account. I've moved it into a similar suggestion which has been updated as "Under Consideration". You can learn more about it here. I hope to see you around.

[DanSchuts]

Ok so just over 2 years after the original post about allowing more devices to the child accounts, 391 comments and still Fitbit as not done a thing. Just exactly where are you guys going? Product sales numbers? What's the use of this community, because the moment you accept the T&C's you basically agree that your comment is about as valuable as a match in  fire fight to Fitbit. Almost every comment, a parent refers to a hand-me-down device for their child so why not allow other devices?

[DanSchuts]

Ok so just over 2 years after the original post about allowing more devices to the child accounts, 391 comments and still Fitbit as not done a thing. Just exactly where are you guys going? Product sales numbers? What's the use of this community, because the moment you accept the T&C's you basically agree that your comment is about as valuable as a match AGAINST a fire fight to Fitbit. Almost every comment, a parent refers to a hand-me-down device for their child so why not allow other devices?

[TennisChickRob]

Well said! Idk why we bother to comment - obviously nobody is listening!!!!
( Nor are they suggesting when or if they will ever allow more devices) -
Do We have to lie about their age, too - so the numbers won't tell us the
truth about the person underage-& their health ??

[Bca123]

The Fitbit Ace was too much for “little kids” according to my 10 and 12 year olds, so we went with the Inspire. The fact that you have 2 years of feedback here, I strongly hope that you are convinced that your users want a feature to set up family accounts regardless of device. In the meantime, I will be setting up fake accounts for them. 

[LZeeW]

Fitbit needs to give this request extremely high priority.  The age of digital consent is 13 in the US.  There are some countries in the EU where it is 16.  Can you imagine a 15 year old limited to an Ace 2 with a family account?  Not just for steps and activity.  What about the 15 year old, limited to an Ace 2, who wants to track her period?  There are 8-12 year old athletes who would benefit from a full access tracker.

[bdearbhla]

Another vote for letting the parent decide what device is appropriate for the child. Parental controls can be used.

[cycle_commuter]

I'm having exactly the same issue - bought an inspire for my child today, now clearly it cannot be used with a child account. She isn't 13 and I am not going to lie about her age, since that invalidates the security the a child account is supposed to bring. The Ace 2 looks like it is designed for a 3 year old and its a long time since my daughter thought that kind of chunky colourful "kids design" stuff was OK to wear. 

So my options are to either lie about her age or return this product and go over to another manufacturer? And this thread has been running for 2 YEARS?! Come ON Fitbit, this is pathetic.

[78LalaH]

My daughter received a charge 3 for her birthday today and now I’m finding out the only way to use it is to lie about her age. Ridiculous as the first post was 2 years ago! This is my first experience with Fitbit, I was considering getting one for myself but so far not impressed! 

As a parent it should be my decision what features she can use. The other devices are completely unsuitable for older children they don’t want to wear something with an immature design!

[spiffen]

I would like to set up my old Charge 3 on my son's account. Currently it only allows the Ace chargers. I can't see any reason why kids should be restricted to the Ace trackers if their parents want them to have a different one.

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @mortonboots, thanks for explaining why you would like to have the option to have more Fitbit Devices than Ace to Family Account. I've moved it into a similar suggestion which has been updated as "Under Consideration". You can learn more about it here. I hope to see you around.