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

[Emmapace]

I would like to recommend that when setting up a a family account you can add any device to a kids profile. My kids have all had the aces and have now upgraded to cahrge 5. I would like to add them to my family account as I don't want them to have their own account. Even at the legal age of 13 I would still like ot have the option to add to my a/c.

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @Emmapace, thanks for taking the time to share this suggestion about allowing more Fitbit devices than Ace to Family Account. I've moved it into a similar suggestion which has been updated as "Under Consideration". Click on the thumbs-up to show your support.  I hope to see you around

[chapwillow]

How many years and comments does it take to add other devices?  FITBIT< is there a legal reason that you cannot add more devices to children's accounts?   If it isnt possible to do so in a way that protects you legally, just say so and shut this endless conversation down.  More importantly, spread the word to your retailers and stop the practice of selling fitbits to parents intending to use them for their kids when it is not possible.

Thanks.

[LoriSmith9906]

Wow... this comment came 4 YEAR ago - and Fit bit hasn't changed. Got our kid (she's almost 13) a new Inspire 2 for Christmas. We discovered we had to set her up as an adult and on a separate account bc only the Ace varieties are allowed to gave children's accounts.

Uuuuugh.

Does Fit Bit not think that people will give second devices to their children to use as well? Or maybe their children can handle or may need more options on their fitbits? 

[Goblinski]

I got my four Ionics for $75 a pop on fleabay slightly after they came out, participated to this thread, and it's been about an year since I returned all four during the big Ionic recall and got reimbursed $299 a pop after using them for years (had to dig half of them from drawer bottoms and such). I had forgotten that this thread even exists, but it's refreshing to see that fitbit remain true to themselves even under Google ownership and work hard on ignoring their users' legitimate requests. Kudos to a company whose products I will no longer touch with a ten foot pole (I miss the smart alarm feature though).

[poppahop]

I like many others are stuck with an Inspire 2 for my 10 yr old who doesn’t have a phone as yet. Really should be able to allow parents to choose this and add the devices to the family account. He’ll be getting a phone soon but will be stuck!

[Jr87123]

It's ironic that you won't allow minors to use anything but the ace for social networking protection reasons. This forces people to lie about their children's age, allowing the children to access and appear older on social networks. and as a result fitbit endangers them more. Instead why not allow any watch to be set up as a child account so social networks can be disabled? Honestly I didn't buy myself or my children a Fitbit for social networking. Stick to being a fitness tracker. 

[Sstephie05]

Agreed!!! My daughter just got one that isn’t an Ace and I can’t set it up on mine. She doesn’t have a phone yet so how the heck are we supposed to do it. If I set her up on mine under me, it deletes my fit bit!! 

[WyzofBit]

You can add another comment to the pile of extending the children's accounts to other watches. My child cannot have their own account due to age and the parents wanting control but they have outgrown the child watches. Data, social network, tracking are all things that a parent can and shiuld be able to control, which should be a parent controlled setting. Depending on what other options are out there this might get returned and we certainly won't get further Fitbits until this is resolved.

[Mensallen]

I’m new to Fitbit (Having always had an Apple Watch), I have just purchased 3 fitbits for my wife, our daughter and me.

Firstly I have to say I find the set up unnecessarily burdensome and after all the effort, I am disgusted to find that the Versa product I was sold for my daughter is not “child friendly” - or at least fit bit deem it so and will not let me set it up in my child account. 
it’s hardly rocket science if a product can’t be set up for a child, then don’t sell it for use by a child!!

Nowhere in the box I purchased does it mention not suitable for kids under 13.

pathetic!

[dadmike]

My son needs help with calming down so we just bought the inspire to replace the ACE which is missing the calming down feature. I want to be able to treat it as a family one. So please make this change.

[garry24]

Throw it in the bin or set age older, fit bit will never change this.   The feature request is over 5yrs old.  

[Mange_J]

I would like to vote previous comment as this threads solution but it wont let me.

[Finnbhennach]

It's now been 2 years since Google's acquisition of Fitbit LLC, and the failure to address an issue first submitted to this "Idea Exchange" in 2018, 4 years ago, is beyond ridiculous. I can't think of a single reason that GoogleBit would continue to re require purchase of a special device for children only, rather than the same device or devices that the parents of the children utilize. In fact, rather than limit the scope of which devices can be utilized on the child account in the name of "privacy", which can be addressed in the app settings, refusing to allow children to utilize GPS enabled devices may actually make them less safe. If a child utilizing an Ace tracker were to be lost or kidnapped or victim of some other horrendous scenario, the best you could hope for would be to hunt for the tracker using BLE and getting in close enough proximity to identify it before losing battery. A GPS enabled device combined with the child's personal device (which may or may not already be GPS capable) would allow parents to identify the current or last known location of their child's tracker.

The limitations placed on which devices can be utilized Seems to be indirect conflict with the capabilities of Google's Family Link (which I have found to be the best family group manager compared to Amazon's parent dashboard or Microsoft's family safety). Family Link allows a parent to pass along their old devices, even those devices which may have deprecated Android support, and manage those devices accordingly. In fact, the Family Link app is so superior to Amazon's solution that I have side-loaded the Google Play store and installed family link on Fire 8 tablets.

One would think that the acquisition of Fitbit by Alphabet would bring to the table the parent company's spirit of providing open source software and solutions that enable customers worldwide the ability to access a seemingly infinite supply of a myriad group of devices which all share an architecture compatible with the Google Android lineage. If the topic of discussion were, perhaps, something like adding the ability of consumers to flash custom firmware into old mobile devices, then syncing them with old Fitbit devices which had been flashed with custom firmware, and then attempting to register said pair of devices to a family account, then I could see why GoogleBit might ignore this thread.

Unfortunately this is a very real, pertinent, and persistent issue that remains concomitant with the purchase of new Fitbit devices. It is not some legacy problem only affecting those who wish to hand down a five-year-old device. In my opinion the quickest, simplest, and best solution would be to incorporate Google's family link into the management of family accounts on Fitbit servers. Clearly there is some type of project in the works as we are presently being notified that Google sign in will cease to function in the near future. Hopefully this heralds a true migration of the Fitbit family of apps into the Google management system available on all Android and Chrome devices, rather than the piece meal solution of continuing to allow sign in to a different ecosystem of apps with Google credentials.

Regardless of which path the solution may take, I see no reason to consider purchasing additional Fitbit devices for any member of my family until this issue is fully and completely resolved in such a way as to give the consumer full control over who in their family may use which device.

[joggienl]

I would like to setup an older Versa 2 of mine to a child account in my family and I can't. Wase of a device because it is still good enough and my kid would love to use it.

I get that children need protection and the idea of the "family account" where you can add kids is really great. I do not get though why I can't add it.

Please consider opening this up, maybe via some extra step (like "this device was not meant for kids but you can add it" or whatever) but do not prevent it from adding...

This is leading to parents creating "adult" account for their youngsters because they still want to give them a nice tracker/smartwatch. And without it the watch does not work. Teaching them it is okay to lie to get something done. Meh. This is not not good in any situation!

[RMichl]

Are there any news about this? 

[abennett17]

I completely agree! I just gave my daughter my Versa 3 and was floored that I couldn't set it up for her on her own account! This needs to be changed! 

[Catnik2023]

So, how many up votes are needed to get this feature changed?  Passing down a Charge 5 to my child only to discover the only way to set it up is to lie about his age???  This is ridiculous.  

[Graeme_T]

Adding my thoughts FWIW and agreeing with every other parent who has contributed to the comments on this topic in the forum. How many comments is it going to take to move this from 'Under Consideration' given the fact the original post is from 2018? Or is this something else that can be chalked off following the acquisition by Google and the slow, but sure, degradation of features from Fitbit devices?
By ignoring the issue all you're doing is pushing parents to get creative when creating an account for their child who is now a 'tween' and moving into young adulthood. This is a blatantly ridiculous situation for any parent to be in when all they need / want is to be able to add a device other than one of the Ace series to the Family Account. How difficult can it possibly be to add this feature, I mean you've had 4+ years of comments on it to indicate that it would be worthwhile? It would give the best of both worlds to you and parents: you probably get higher end devices out in the market to an age group not really served well and parents get to maintain some sort of control.

[VictorBM]

I have a very mature 10 year old that hates childish things. We returned the Ace 2 and got her the Inspire 3 (also yellow is her colour) we need to register this device to her profile. But the app won’t let us add it unless is an Ace
How can we go around this ?

[daveh82]

Why not simply allow to activate all kind of Fitbit devices for kids if the activation is confirmed by an adult? - For Android devices, there is a so-called "Family Link" app that I use daily for my kids to manage their installed apps on their devices. If my son wants to e.g. install an app on his Android device, then a message pops up on my mobile phone and I have to allow the installation to proceed. Such a procedrure might also be used to manage Fitbit devices for kids.

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi @VictorBM, thanks for taking the time to share this product feedback about allowing the Inspire 3 to be set up in a Family Account with us. I noticed this product feedback was already requested in this board, so I’ve moved your post here. Please support this product feedback idea by adding your vote, this helps our developers to keep tracking its popularity and demand over time.

[SpinningAround]

My son chose and bought his own Fitbit (Charge 5) based on the features and functionality he thought were important and to avoid ‘growing out of it soon’ because the ace marketing looks too kiddy. 
Ridiculous that it can’t be linked to a child account and managed under family settings.

[calliegsmith]

Please allow child accounts to use/sync devices other than the specific child ones that FitBit sells.

[Odyssey13]

Hi @calliegsmith  it's the law. COPPA - click to read the article. So it wouldn't matter which fitness tracker a child uses, there are laws in place in the United States, the European Union and other places in this whole world.