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

[Ks1Sunflower]

The status of this has been "under consideration " for 4 years, how about an update? I too would like to change my child's device.

[brasshat]

My uncle has gifted down multiple Apple Watches to his grandkids over the years. I don't understand why I can't give my old Versa 2 to my daughter. Please fix this.

[GhostCard]

3 years later and still nothing… might be a pipe dream here guys.

I would love to pass on my nicer but older model Fitbit’s to my kids “officially” but whatever; Fitbit doesn’t own me and can’t force me to buy crappy stuff for my kids. I just made an account an lied about their ages; I did that years ago when my 9 year old needed an email so I could talk to them on video calls when I was gone. Sure I could let them use a duplicate account with my name, but they had all the passwords anyway so why make it for me? Kids need to use their own stuff because they need to learn how to be safe. By 9 my kids knew to put their seatbelt on in the car. So by 9 they knew how to delete an email that looks suspicious too. I don’t see how they couldn’t figure out a Fitbit, there “social” stuff is so clunky my kids don’t even want to use it.

[Tricia.Anna]

My 11 yr old bought himself the Versa 2 as the Ace is way too kiddish and small for him. I went to set up family account and was majorly disappointed to see you can Only link an Ace! I'm now forced to create his own account and lie about his ago as that's the only way for him to be able to use it.

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi @Tricia.Anna, thanks for taking the time to explain why you'd like to see more Fitbit devices aside of the Ace series available to connect in a Family account with us. This idea was already requested in the Feature Suggestions board, so I’ve moved your post here. This will help us to make sure the suggestions don't get confused, or split a popular vote. Your feedback is truly appreciated, please click on the thumbs-up to show your support.

[broth42]

Not being able to use any FitBit device is mind bogglingly short-sighted and quite frankly a horrible idea from a product design/marketing/sales standpoint.  You could sell so many more devices.  I've been a software developer for 25 years and the solution seems painfully simple; allow any FitBit device to connect and if it's to a child acct, only allow certain features/functionality.  Problem solved.  This isn't a hardware problem, it's a software problem.  Fix the software, make your customers happy, make more money.

[Dime210]

Very problematic approach to this issue . Needs solving.

[Starlily42]

I can’t believe this suggestion was submitted in 2018 and yet still, when it’s nearly 2022, Fitbit won’t allow us to add any other devices except Aces. This also isn’t clear AT ALL in marketing materials. We bought both our sons Charge 4 devices, yet we can’t set them up with a family account, and we can’t set them up with their own account unless we lie about their birthdate. It’s completely unacceptable and crappy service. 

[Ganeale58]

I agree, I would not give my child a non waterproof fitbit.  The Chargec4 should be family account syncable.

[NaomiW72]

I see that adding more items to the family account have been under consideration since 2018, isn’t about time that Fitbit looked at this by now, I really wish I had purchased another product for my daughters Christmas present. She had outgrown her Garmin kids version and wanted something a little more grown up, but can’t now track her activities because she is under 13. Won’t be getting another Fitbit product in the future. Garmin or Apple next time and for when I want to get one. Wish it had mentioned it in the advertising. So disappointed 

[ksralph]

We got our son who is going to be 11 a Charge 4. Did not realize the only options for family plans are aces. They need to give more options

[DavideFitbit]

Hi @ksralph, thanks for taking the time to share your feedback about the possibility of making other Fitbit devices compatible with Family account. I noticed that a similar feature suggestion already exists and it's has Under Consideration status, so I’ve moved your post here, this helps to keeps the boards more organized. Make sure to add your vote as well to support this suggestion, this helps the team of developers to keep track of popularity and demand over time. 

Thank you again for your participation in the Community!

[gregpc1]

I agree with the rest. Child accounts should be able to link to any fitbit and restrictions driven from the account settings set by the parent or guardian.

[Posies98]

Our 12 yo daughter received a FitBit Inspire 2 from her grandparents yesterday for Christmas. Much to our dismay we were unable to add her to the family account since she didn’t have the more basic Ace. This was extremely disappointing and unfortunate. I truly believe FitBit should make other devices available to set up on the family account. The Ace is too elementary for middle school and high schoolers. Good parents wanting to instill safe online practice and a healthy lifestyle are unable to do so through FitBit. 
It appears customers have been voicing this concern for 3-4 years now. I think change is long overdue. Make yourself marketable to the entire family and allow for family monitoring of all ages. 

[BintiJ]

Totally agree it is quite disgusting for a company the size of Fitbit to not fix this problem

[Ganeale58]

Agree, there is no reason that I would buy an overpriced, under performing watch for my child.  The Ace does not do heart rate.   My wife and I each use Charge 4 watches, and want our children to use a similar watch.  At the time of this writing, they are the same price.  Ridiculous!   Families should be able to have one account that tracks multiple watches.  I am not buying the kids smartphones,  I would more likely get rid of fitbit and go another route.

[JHolly17]

I completely understand and agree with the child privacy laws to protect them in online situations, but if they are still in the family account until age 13, the device they use shouldn’t matter. My 11-year-old will be in junior high next year, and he would like the more functional and grown-up look of the Inspire 2, rather than an Ace 3. He has had the original Ace for 3 years already and it has been malfunctioning for the past year, so we would like to invest in a better product for him. 

[Pamalv]

I totally agree. The ace products for kids don't track menstrual cycles so fitbit is assuming no child under 13 gets their cycle and would want to track it???? Also none of the features in the adult products are dangerous to a child and of course I would want to add the product to the family acct. Fitbit is either losing customers or forcing us to lie about our kids age. We as parents should be able to add any product we choose to buy our child to the family acct. There is no reason to limit it only to ace please fix this. 

[Ifelyn]

Ridiculous that I can't add the fitbit charge to a family account or I have to lie about his age for my son to get his own account.  Currently, my son has a Garmin  Vivofit Spiderman smart watch. He asked for a fitbit for Christmas because as a middle schooler the Spiderman watch was too childish.  Well, now he can't upgrade to a more mature watch from Fitbit.  Guess, we'll need to explore other Garmin models.  Friends of his have Apple watches and I don't think they have this age issue.  Why haven't you come up with a solution for this after this post was initiated in 2018???  Did you lose all your software developers because of the pandemic??? Does not make sense.

[cambriaknight]

I just bought a versa 2 as a chrismas gift to my 10 yo son. But it is so disappointed that I cannot add the device under his profile just becaus he is <13.

It’s not a regulation issue, it is just a user experience issue. Fitbit only needs to make some software improvement to disable some features for kids. It’s not a high cost redesign of their devices. 

[KZSC]

Stunned to realize I can’t add a child account for my son’s Luxe device.  Really?  I should be able to easily monitor any device until whatever age I deem appropriate.  Very disappointed with our Christmas gifts now. 

[Chrekyb]

Hey Fitbit

What's the latest in this. 2018 this was raised.

What happened to your development team?????  Perhaps you need to move to a more agile way if working. There is no way you can say that this is still under consideration.  All you appear to be doing is send pointless emails stating a comment has been over so it does not confuse things. You have got to be kidding me!

I would at least expect some respect for be shown to your customers and tell the truth. If you are NOT going to use this enhancement request then just say so. 

Its time to service your customers, remember what Richard Branson once said - if you do not look sfter your customers, someone else will!

Your customers are getting fed up!! Maybe we will get more traction on other platforms...

[Alinoe]

Same here. As I got 2 inspire devices for my kids. 9-10yo.  They allready use it almost a year with a fake birth date.  The other watches were to childish according to them. Nothing happened with my kids.. I even think that nowhere on the box was stated they needed to be 13yo.  I, myself got a Garmin for 3-4 years. Because of the unwillingnes of Fitbit, their next watch will also be a Garmin.  The only thing fitbit did now was changing this thread from the one folder to the other.

[Pammysweets]

How is this still under consideration? The original post is from 2018 and there are over 1000 comments on this forum from frustrated customers having the same issue. I bought my 10 year old daughter an inspire 2 for Christmas and I cannot set it up for her without putting an incorrect birthday. This is ridiculous. 

[rcge]

Data protection law would anyway be irrelevant to the device - obviously they collect information, filtering of what is acceptable for a minor or an adult should be done in the phone app based on the settings there (including jurisdiction and personal preferences).