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

[GrumpySod]

Just bought my <13 old son a Versa 3 as it looks grown up (he wanted it) and is waterproof and has GPS in it. Then I found that, I could not register it to his child account. This is ridiculous on its own. Shamefully, we need to lie about his age, so that he can use his birthday present.

Having read articles on the same matter and blaming child protection regulations for this, makes it even more ridiculous. And to make it actually even worse, I found this topic. Started in 2018 and still no change or improvement.

I share another commenter's view on this should not be a hardware matter but instead, it should be addressed within the application level in form of restricting features, stopping sharing data for a child.

This is a primary example of today's trends, when the products are sold without their developers having any idea of how they will be used. It has been more than 3 years, since this topic was raised. This time was not enough to re-consider their original approach to meet their customers need. I cannot believe the changes needed to be made to the application would need more than 6 months to develop and test. At the end of the day, it is not the whole application neeeds changing only the data handling part of it.

Overall I think, the device we bought is great but the service around it and the customer care is absolute rubbish. I was considering buying a smartwatch from the Sense range soon for myself. But I will not. Not because it would not be suitable for me, but because I am disappointed in the service Fitbit provides their customers with. Such a big company being so narrow minded and unable to keep up with their customer needs, it is unbelievable. Fitbit should be the company setting examples how fitness trackers and similar devices can be used safely by people regardles their age. I am disappointed that, I cannot execercise parental control on my kid's activity tracker because I had to bypass the otherwise present parental control features, so he can use the device he wanted.

Guys, you need to get your acts together as eventually people will not make the mistake to buy your products anymore and then it will be too late for you.

[Dkrumm]

A child account should be able to use any fitbit device. Not just the Ace

[DavideFitbit]

Hi @Dkrumm, thanks for taking the time to share your feedback about the possibility of being able to use more devices for the child account other than Ace. I noticed that a similar feature suggestion already exists, 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!

[PawelH]

What a lot of bull**ahem** from fitbit moderators and company. Usera are asking for the fix on the feature for last 4 years and all they can get is the answer 'please vote so we can have a look at this' !!! That deserves to be posted as the biggest failure of fitbit at tiktok, fasebook, twitter etc.!!! Fitbit get your game up!!!!!!!!!!

⁣Regards
Pawel

Sent with BlueMail mobile​

[Steamer175]

I bought a Fitbit Charge 4 for my grandson for his 12th birthday.  He was excited when he opened it, two hours ago.  Since then, I have been trying to set it up on his computer only to discover that your app does not work on the most widely used computer operating system.  I finally gave in and decided to set it up on my phone for him, only to find out I had to create an account for myself and then a child account for him.  Now I find that I can only set up an Ace for him, which does us no good.  

Way yo go Fitbit.  What was supposed to be a great day turned out to be a very disappointing birthday.

[BintiJ]

Yes sadly you have to lie about his age to give him his own account☹

[BFMC]

4 years later and this is still 'under consideration' - not holding my breath for a solution but you can add me to the list of undoubtably frustrated customers who have purchased a device other than an Ace for their child only to find out that we either a) have to fudge D.O.B. or b) set the device up as a parents. Disappointing given this is something that should be easily resolved via software.

[Cannulator]

Thanks to the inadequacy of Fitbit to take this seriously despite pretty obvious disdain from a large number customers over a long period of time, we moved our kids to an Apple Watch and SpaceTalk Adventurer.

The bonus is connectivity, traceability and safety not afforded by Fitbit.

eBay is the final journey for our Fitbit devices.

[Janinadawn]

Agreed! Never had such a good company do such a bad job about ignoring feedback. 😢

[Albank]

Thanks Cannulator for the tips on the other companies. I’m going to look into them father than continuing with Fitbit.

[Sarix]

A child account should be able to use any fitbit device. Not just the Ace 2,3 ... 

[RDLeigh]

It is extremely frustrating to not be able to add any devices other than the Ace to a family account. I have several trackers that I have retired for myself. I would like to give one of them to my 14 year old daughter. I feel it is important that parents be able to monitor their kids' activity on their trackers, and I feel this should be true for any minor child under the age of 18. My child has some sleep issues and having access to that kind of activity would be helpful in terms of being able to facilitate better management and care of her sleep. There are other benefits of monitoring children's activity - particularly among adolescent girls where disordered eating and over-exercising are prevalent issues and potential pitfalls. In addition to being a mom I am also a healthcare provider, and feel that the the benefits of parental involvement in being able to track teens' activity are huge. Please consider allowing other devices to be added to family accounts besides the Ace trackers. 

[JenNMomof2]

I would like the Versa 2 to be available to kids also. We went from garmin vivofjt to versa and I now have one app on my phone and two accounts and have to toggle between the two. It doesn’t make sense you can’t have a family account for all the models. Please consider. 

[dfietje]

The first comment is from 2018 and the feature is "under consideration" since over 1 year ago. But I haven't found a SINGLE comment from a fitbit moderator explaining the logic behind preventing other models for children (I refer to the FAQ and how it is decided that the feature is released or not: Is the suggestion not clear enough? Isn't there enough interest / votes? Is the impact not big enough? Is the cost of developing too high? Does it not align with organizational priorities? Being a product manager myself, I do understand these questions... And I also know how important it is to communicate clearly. Provide workarounds, give a high level explanation on why this takes time (because although I am pretty sure there must be a logical explanation, from the outside, it is just difficult to understand there was specific development to even limit the device types) are important to keep the users satisfied. It's also a great opportunity to share about vision and values, which are known to reinforce trust towards the company. And about that, as a parent, being able to motivate children to focus on their health while reinforcing the link by sharing the same or a similar device or even a used one adds a personal and human touch, which is a value that many people would love to see in a company they want to relate to! So can we please have an update on the status of this feature before I go on an lie about the age of my daughter myself?

[JenNMomof2]

Still waiting here too! So far I’ve had to lie about my kids ages and use two email addresses. Log into one, sync and log out. Repeat for other child. At least 2 times a day. Not fun.

[Flutemsk]

This suggestion was made almost 4 years ago. I only recently purchased an Inspire 2 for my child (at the suggestion of a Dr). When I compared FitBit models, I chose the Inspire because it looked less juvenile. I obviously didn’t do enough research. I don’t see why, other than to give Fitbit more money, there isn’t an option to make it possible for other models to be used. The 9-13 age group is rapidly maturing and their sense of style is moving away from the cartoonish Ace model. Please act and enable parental controls to allow for flexibility of purchasing a more advanced model for this discerning age group. 

[Lillithbear]

I would love an update! It's so frustrating our feedback seems to be
getting ignored.

It's so frustrating. Also, what is the point of these comments, if no one
from the company answers us?

[JenNMomof2]

Maybe we try twitter? 

hellooo Fitbit customer service are you there??

[Vizual54]

WTF FitBit! 4 years and not having fixed this issue.

I can't believe you don't allow children under 13 to use your devices without lying about their age.

Bought a Charge 5 for my 12 year old daughters birthday that she opened yesterday and we discovered this issue while trying to set up the device. Such idioticy really makes me furious .

The device will be return and no Fitbit devices will be bought in this family again.

[Pzaloum]

Please allow other devices to be linked/added to the family child account, other than just Ace devices only. Handing down used devices to our children is cost effective and eco-friendly.

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi @Pzaloum, thanks for taking the time to share this suggestion about being able to set up more Fitbit devices aside of the Ace to the Family Account with us. Your feedback is truly appreciated and because a similar idea was already requested in the Feature Suggestion board, I’ve moved your post here. Please support this idea by adding your vote, this helps our developers to keep tracking its popularity and demand over time.

[RGRowe]

It is ridiculous to restrict child accounts to the Ace. It also seems odd to assess the importance of the issue by the amount of traffic it gets here when the majority of people will just override the setup by lying about their kid's age. 

[garry24]

I posted about 4years ago and have a few devices for the family but moved the kids and myself to Garmin and apple.   I follow this forum to see if there will ever be a real response.   I can confirm that all you will get is either a please vote, we have moved you here or thank you for your feedback.   You will never get a real response. They will not allow kids to use any device.  I look forward to being proved wrong.   

[Albank]

Agreed. 100%. I’ve lost faith. They make you feel like they’re listening and then they show you this door, when it’s actually just the exit.

Alisha

[Gah_reee]

I just fell into the trap like 1000’s of others. Bought a Versa 3 for my 11yr old daughter and now have to lie to set it up and use it. This request has been live since 2018. I think you owe the community an explanation of why it is not possible to setup other Fitbit devices than ace for use by children and to be clear if you will develop a solution or will not. Your packaging and sales information for devices other than ace should clearly state that the device is only suitable for use by children age 13+ (or higher if required by law in your country).