Allow managed family link accounts for teenagers

[djere]

I have a 13-year old with a supervised family link managed account. The Fitbit Charge 6 is designed for ages 13 and up, but will not work on managed accounts as a matter of Google/Fitbit policy, not a technical limitation of the device.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject and updated label

[ExmouthSteve]

Completely agree - we are going through this learning curve with our 13 year old son who invested his savings in a Charge 6. It feels as if Google wants to turn young people (and potentially life-long customers) away at the first opportunity. They cite a Californian law intended to keep children safe as the reason that I cannot connect a Charge 6 to a supervised account, but then their own tech support advises switching off account supervision in the Family Link app which would then make my 13 year old far more at risk from a free, unmonitored use of their account. Even so, I tried their advice, removed supervision and logged into the Fitbit app on his phone using his Google login but, alas, it still only offered him the option to connect to a (very babyish looking) Ace series of trackers. I don't know any teenagers that would want to wear an Ace if a more grown up option could be used instead. So, our only action seems to be to return the Charge 6, find a competitor's tracker that will work for him and never touch a Google / Fitbit product again. I might return my Charge 5 too as a protest! Google owns Fitbit - surely they can sort this issue out. A parent who wants to supervise their teenager's use of their Google account whilst also wanting them to be encouraged in their sport by being able to wear an age-appropriate tracker. How hard can this be? How can so many parents be reporting the same thing without any supportive, sensible, risk-minimising solution coming forward from Google? Thanks.

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi @djere, and thanks for taking the time to share this product feedback about allowing managed family link accounts for teenagers with us. We rely on feedback like yours to help us develop products and features that we know our community wants to see. If this product feedback receives votes from other customers and gains popularity, it will be shared internally with various teams at Fitbit. To learn more about how Fitbit decides what product feedback is developed, visit our FAQs.

Watch this space for status updates. In the meantime, try visiting Health & Wellness to talk with other members about all things health and fitness.

[Bfit1234]

We have the exact same issue. A 14yo that have saved up for this and now bitterly disappointed. In my opinion this is a gap in the design to not have considered

 accounts > 13yo can still have family linked. It is assumed that they won’t be which is clearly the wrong assumption based on comments here AND in the community that seems to be having the same issues. This is crappy CX when your customer have bought an off the shelf product that essentially have a hard limits on how it can be used but that’s not disclaimed very widely and openly. 

If you consider the long term stickiness of your customers, you’ve essentially lost them without even them having to try the product. Disappointed to say the least. 

[ladesso]

My kid will be 13 in December and I was thinking to buy a Charge 6 for him, as he requested many time.

But if I cannot use his managed account I think that I will search for an alternative in another brand instead of Fitbit.

[ExmouthSteve]

We got my 13 year old son's Charge 6 to work, albeit a bit glitchily, and
quite a convoluted process.

If there are alternatives out there that don't have this issue then I would
say go for it. Fitbits for youth are not worth the hassle!

All the best,

Steve

[Chrominus]

Fitbit acts with utter surprise that 13-year-olds are not fully emancipated adults living on their own. This is a huge market you are ignoring. Do any of you have kids? 

[Chrominus]

Can anyone recommend another company's product that will work with teenagers in a supervised account?

Moderator Edit: Formatting

[Charsaus]

Completely agree. My 13 (almost 14yo) has been using an aspire for close to 3 years now as we felt that the ace were to babyish for her when we purchased. She has been using it to track her cycle - you can't do that with an Ace! In this world, I want to be able to continue to monitor her device usage to get on front of any negative impacts before they escalate. So why would I turn off family link? It is there to protect her. Maybe I'll just have to find another software/app to do that and stop using family link entirely 

[NCVincentP]

This is absolutely ridiculous and the idea that this is seen as anything other than a complete oversight and bug in the system is beyond belief. My son is 14, so he is too old to use a Fitbit Ace, and the only way he can use any other model is if his account is no longer supervised. How has no one escalated this as a major issue to get fixed? I never imagined I would need to research these kinds of issues before buying him the device because surely no one would be so obtuse, but here we are.

[Mary4Co]

Still no work around for this problem? I too have a 14yo that is in Cross Country and Track with a Fitbit she can't use bc of the family link/Google account block. This makes no financial sense for Google/Fitbit and the fact it's supposed to be a compatible service, they are both Google. 

[ExmouthSteve]

My son's one works fine now but we had to remove his Google supervision,
set up the fitbit, wait a day or so then reapply his supervision. A
complete faff but worth the effort!

Good luck with yours.

Steve

[Mary4Co]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the update. Curious, I can take FamLink off her phone and then reinstall? There's a box on the manage account the states if we remove the supervison, it can not be undone. This sounds it's not the case?

[ExmouthSteve]

It is definitely possible to reapply supervision. It has to be done from
the child's phone though if they are over 13 years old. We managed it but I
recall the options seemed a bit hidden in Google.

[NCVincentP]

You can take supervision off, and that will allow you to set up the device, but once you re-apply supervision, they will lose the ability to log into the FitBit app, which means that they can't sync it anymore (and it will slowly lose time).

In short, it's not a fix. It will let you get the device set up once, but you can't continue to use it as advertised.

[ExmouthSteve]

We did this with my son's account and it works OK - he can still log in to
his Fitbit account.

It is really frustrating though that a teenager cannot use a decent fitbit
workout a whole load of working around and doubt as to the end result.

[Berticus]

We have this same issue, bought the watch for my 13-year old son. We actually upgraded from an Ace3. Seemed like he was ready for a big boy watch, but unfortunately is now stymied by Google because it won't use his supervised Google account and I can't create a fitbit account for him either.