Integrate with iOS Health

[so-rich]

Hi there,

I'm really excited about Apple's announcement of the Health App in iOS 8 to be release this fall.  I'm looking forward to seeing a product announcement by Fitbit for a successor to the recalled Fitbit Force, and I'm really hoping to hear some exciting news about Fitbits intigration with Apple's new Health App to be released alongside iOS 8 this fall.  

This is a huge oportunity to make your devices even smarter and more integrated - Please support these APIs!  Thanks!

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity and labels.

[rjfox6039]

With Google I/O around the corner my guess is no support for HealthKit because google is going to have introduces it's own heath tracking so if you are an apple supporter; with general lack of of response from fitbit (witch has a little tie to google) there wil be NO interface to Apples heath kit. Guess I get to throw out my surge it had potenial and get an apple watch.

[mg01]

I vote yes. Integrating Fitbit data with my other sources so I can view it all in one place is important to me

[RickyFitbit]

Hello everyone. We're receiving a lot of passionate feedback and we want you all to know we're still listening! We don't have any information on Healthkit integration however, your feedback is not resting on deaf ears. 

@Dotpdf @hblkwks @Mikey1234 @SunsetRunner We're sorry to see you go! We hope you achieve your health goals whether it be with us or without us. 

@elctrncwz101 @ADM @RyanW91 @Tiffytrax @KAMA3 @m0pher Thank you for your feedback. I can understand how integrating with HealthKit would benefit your goals! 

@Soek @vote-isn-excuse @asrose @Pedder @chrisbogyThanks for your feedback on why we should integrate with HealthKit! 

@skooter210 @wendybird44 @kev585 We're still here and this feature is still on the table. We're still undecided on whether we should integrate or not. We understand that this may not be the answer you're looking forward to and we're sorry. 

@jbone311 You're feedback is appreciated. However, we don't have any new information to present. Once we have new news, we'll make sure to update this feature request. 

@deidramThanks for your detailed review! You're not kidding!  It will definitely be an interesting year in wearables and we're excited to see where it goes as well! 

@SunsetRunner OAUTH2.0 is in BETA! What's that mean? It means that apps like sync solver will have heart rate API! If you speak API, we have a thread here.

@gutsma It's been a while! If we've mistreated you wrongly, we're truly sorry. As of right now, we're still undecided on integrating. I'm sorry for the frustration and I completely understand. 

[iwatts]

@RickyFitbit you say that this is still on the table yet the article quoted above says that you have been quoted as saying you have no plans. You already have a good reason as you integrate with Microsoft Health Bench which is just Microsofts version of the same thing. So all the reasons you chose to go with Microsoft Health Bench are the same as why you should integrate with Health Kit. Frankly if you aren't going to do it after a year on the first integrated health platform to be released it is fairly obvious you aren't going to do it. We would have more respect for you if you would just be honest than the constant lies.

[iwatts]

@RickyFitbit are you or the company going to respond or still tell us you are listening when you obviously aren't. Like I said before at least have the decency to be honest and open with us.

[Basalt]

@RickyFitbit

I can't think of any compelling reasons NOT to integrate.

Maybe if you list some we would understand Fitbit's hesitation.

Sent from my  iPhone.

[dtherio]

Basically they think we are stupid. 

I do like the product and plan on keeping my Charge. However, I already purchased a competing scale and do not plan on purchasing another fitbit product due to how they have handled this topic.

Interestingly enough, earlier this week I received notification that I had won a Withings Activite watch/fitness tracker.

Hopefully I will be receiving it soon.

[gutsma]

One of our Apple watches arrived this week.  There is a bit of a learning curve, as it has many capabilities.  Yes, there are a few glitches, but it's a first generation product.  These glitches are not as significant as I had anticipated.  If it meets your needs and fits into your budget, it is certainly worth looking at.

The next order of business is replacing our Aria.  I was reading reviews on Witherings product and they seem somewhat mixed.  Does anyone have one?  Is there another option that sync to HealthKit?  

Dear FitBit,

I would not be looking at any different products if you had not lied to us in the first place.  We've purchased 5 products over the years, and encouraged numerous friends to do so as well.  THAT is an example of loyalty.  

Loyalty can not be sustained if it is a one-way street.  That is what you've done.  You won't care about losing my business.  I get that.  But you've turned off numerous others as well.  That is an foolish business decision.  

Former Customer

[dtherio]

@gutsma, I recently purchased an iHealth scale for under $100.00 (I believe it was $88). While it might not look as fancy as some of the others out there, it records more data and supports HealthKit.

[iwatts]

I find it ironic that this forum is now about swapping details of which non Fitbit products to buy because they can't be truthful with us. They have gone on public record to say they have no plans but will not be honest with their customer base. All I want is one representative to come on here and be truthful and say it won't happen, or explain why this decision is so hard for them when they have already made the decision to go with Microsoft Health Bench. Is honesty too much to ask. @RickyFitbit you need to be honest and stop giving us the party line or put someone on this forum who is capable of being honest.

[zapleahy]

@dtherio The quote matches our current positioning that we have no imminent plans to enable a direct data connection. Congratulations on your recent win! It is our loss that you have decided not to invest more in your Fitbit experience and this community, but I can understand the desire to diversify your fitness tracking experience.

@iwatts We have remained very open to feedback around this topic and our teams are continuing to consider this suggestion. It seems to me that you would only agree we are listening, being open and honest, if we were able to guarantee for you that we will or will not be delivering this feature? It is not an insignificant decision, and while your voices are making an impression and having an impact, the conclusion to this decision has not been reached.

We sincerely hope that we will be delivering our community all the good news you want to hear, but dishonesty would be sharing inaccurate information or information that misrepresents the truth--in this case, sharing that a hard decision has been made when it has not.

Take care and enjoy the weekend, everyone. @RickyFitbit and I will continue to do all we can to represent you and your needs and desires for Fitbit products internally. 

[iwatts]

@zapleahy - The fact that you have been silent on this for so long on this forum speaks volumes. You say that this is not an insignificant decision. Then answer me one simpe question, based on the fact that Microsoft Health Vault and Apple Health Kit both basically do the same job. 

Why do you integrate with Health Vault and not Health Kit. As someone else has mentioned why don't you explain to us why this is such a hard decision having already gone down the Microsoft route. Why has Fitbit found it so easy to make a decision on one and not on the other. Then maybe we would understand your hesitation.

But without that explanation we all see this as an easy decision - to work with open API's and share data.

So without that explanation I'm afraid I, and I presume everyone else on this forum, take your "reassurances" that we are being listened to with a pinch of salt. Tell us why this is such a hard decision for you to make, when most of your competitors have already done so. What decision is there - you would seem to rather lose customers than commit to this, and the general feeling on this forum is that we don't understand why.

So again, for simplicity sake, let me repeat - an answer to one question. Why is it so easy to commit to Health Vault and not Health Kit i.e. what is it about Health kit that makes it a "Hard Decision" - until we get an answer to this question I suspect most people on here will not be reassured by you!

[PKDaba]

@zapleahy and @Ricky, thank you for finally responding after almost a year of silence. Disappointingly, the RESULTS are no different for us iOS users since the initial post from June last year (no matter how smoothly you word your responses to responders).

Many of us have been supportive of Fitbit and its innovative and well made hardware from the beginning. You may feel that you have been completely honest with us. But, your response will just prolong what iOS users have been waiting for a year: a clear decision from Fitbit whether Healthkit will be supported or not (YES or NO). From a year worth of responses, you must agree that your iOS users and early supporters have been deeply let down by this indecision. Also brushing off our frustration and claiming that Fitbit has been honest all this time will further inflame the situation. Case in point, your packaging for the Charge HR, which I purchased in January, mentions in general that it will support multiple platforms (e.g. syncs with iPhone 4S+, iPad 3+, Android, Windows, etc.) On that basis, any consumer will assume that the product will work with its underlying ecosystem. In my case, I assumed that it would work with Healthkit. Unfortunately, online research at the time did not really bring up the issue of Healthkit as the Charge was a new product. I wasn't even aware of this forum at the time. But regardless of whether consumers do their research or not, the packaging on the product should be as honest as possible. I hope you can understand were our claims of dishonesty are coming from. So, yes, a clear and decisive answer from Fitbit would be helpful here for existing and future iOS users considering on purchasing from Fitbit.

In the meantime, I'd recommend existing iOS users to continue voicing their displeasure. I'm sure some of us can afford to stop using Fitbit products. At the same token, I'm guessing also that many cannot. Also, make sure to leave one star ratings on your reviews for their app due to the lack of Healthkit integration. Pass the word around. I've had many family and friends (all iOS users) asking me about my Charge HR. You'll know my honest response to them: hardware is good, but iOS support is lacking and indecisive.

I wish Fitbit success on their IPO. Just don't forget how you got there from the support of early iOS users.

[drtaxsacto]

Dear @RickyFitbit and all the other Fitbit people who are reading this -

About four years ago I bought my first Fitbit. I like the way it collects data. I also now have four years of data on my exercise patterns. That is interesting and valuable data - both for me to monitor my activity and for a potentially wider community.
During the time that I have owned various devices, I have recommended Fitbit to people I meet and members of my family. But for the last year, a large portion of your customers have asked that the Fitbit data be integrated in the Apple Healthkit. And you have ignored those requests.

Apple has been good about offering a Software Development Kit (https://developer.apple.com/healthkit/) to potential developers.
Then Apple introduced the Watch - I bought one immediately - and many of us asked again politely to integrate with the AHK.

In a couple of earlier posts I explained that were this to be accomplished I would keep my Fitbit. But the AHK offers something that Fitbit’s data does not. With the Fitbit I can collect my own exercise data and share it with friends. If you are competitive like I am that is pretty neat. The AHK offers a lot more. Most important to me is the ability to reconcile data with other data that my watch can collect - for example, after an intense workout I am interested in heart rate recovery time - I can do that with the AHK and I can look at the data longitudinally (which the Fitbit App only offers in a partial way for the exercise data). At the same time Apple has released the AHK to the medical research community. It will allow those of us with phones and watches to become part of data collection efforts to advance medical research. That is a very good option for improving American health. Your current vision of sharing (which only shares with others who have the Fitbit) is too narrow.

In my professional life I am a consultant. I help advise clients on a number of things including how to respond to customers. Let me give you an interpreted response to one comment you made to a customer. (This is something I do with many clients.) - Here is the original response (the RED is what your customer is actually thinking) --
We have remained very open to feedback around this topic and our teams are continuing to consider this suggestion (although we have virtually ignored making even a preliminary response for more than a year) . It seems to me that you would only agree we are listening(that is presumptuous in the extreme - you’ve just told him you have not done anything but listen) , being open and honest,(I always love that comment - it means that you have not been honest with us before) if we were able to guarantee for you that we will or will not be delivering this feature? It is not an insignificant decision, and while your voices are making an impression and having an impact, the conclusion to this decision has not been reached. (So we will continue to ignore the requests and respond when we are good and ready)

Ideally, you would actually listen to your customers but if you choose not to you could consider an alternative response

We have considered whether to integrate into the Apple Healthkit and decided that we cannot do it, at this time. There are two reasons for that decision. We have worked the last several years to continuously improve our own products and even a small software diversion would divert us from the main goal of making the best products possible. We are a small company and diverting coding to accomplish that integration would divert us from our primary purpose which is to make the best fitness tracker on the market. At the same time, many of our customers have tablets and phones on the Android platform and that integration would not assist those customers. When either platform begins to work on cross platform integration we will work hard to make sure that Fitbits can share that data. In the meantime, we have responded to the APP(s) that allow integration into the AHK and have posted an FAQ to assist you in using the APP so that the data you generate with a Fitbit can be integrated successfully into the AHK.

The response, while disappointing, is plausible, honest and responsive to the requests. I don’t normally offer free advice. But I have liked the product(s) I have bought from you. However, at some point, a lot of your customers will begin to read stuff like the recent David Pogue’s recent review of you and your competition (https://www.yahoo.com/tech/22-fitness-bands-and-the-battle-for-your-wrist-the-119529868834.html ) you might understand how competitive the environment is. At this point based on your inadequate responses to civil requests, I am likely to download all my data, figure out a way to ship it to the AHK and buy a competing device that has listened a bit better to its customer base.

[Basalt]

If you have a CSV file you can use use Health Importer by Paradox Customs
https://appsto.re/us/KmrF3.i

Sent from my  iPhone.

[RunsWithScissor]

I'd used the Garmin brand for years before moving to Fitbit (Surge) as my daily wear tracker. Garmin had some things that it did very well. (Footpod, Bicycle integration) But I was impressed with the Surge so I thought I would give it a try. While there are many things I like about my Surge there are a building number of disappointments. The biggest of which is the seeming difficulty that other activity sites & portals have with getting data out of Fitbit. It seems like the rest of the 'fitness data world'  has an accepted or somewhat logical way of reporting data and then there is aparently Fitbit's way of doing it. Bluntly, it works like crap with 'Map My Run'; so I lost the ability to compete with the majority of my fitness friends. (On publishing my runs/speeds/distances) And it barely works with Apple Health (If I use SyncSolver)... and then a number of the good data points can't be recorded because your API is aparently less than impressive or less than functional. And even if I use SyncSolver, still no ability to get running activities to report in a way that would allow me to share and compete with my friends. I gather that most of the compatibility issues stem from API problems. While I enjoy writing code as much as the next guy: here is what I am going to say. I don't like your product enough to spend my personal time tearing into your API. I've already bought your most expneisve products. (Surge, Aria)  You better figure out how to make this problem go away or you can bet your it will be the last Fitbit product I buy. My health is a personal and social event and that is how I like it. If your goal is to find ways to make my information hard to get to because you want to be the standard by which everyone else is supposed to conform; I'm going to tell you that you are going to lose that battle. And reading some of the posts here that seems to be the arrogant undertone to your repsones. You don't and never will have the market share that Apple has. They will win, and my next product will be an Apple watch or something else that does what you do that also lets me do what I want and need to with my data. So once again in summary; figure it out or count me as the next customer that moves on to a competitive product. 

Moderator Edit: Removed explicit

[gutsma]

@dtherio- Thank you for the tip.  It looks like that will meet my needs.

[T_abts]

Just received my Fitbit charge HR - I'm really disappointed it does not yet link it's accurate data to Health. Ios9 is coming soon - get it going guys - I feel you will loose market share if this is not activated soon!!

[Karell]

@zapleahy You state that "this decision has not been reached", however, the article posted indicates that a decision has in fact been reached ... that fitbit has no plans to integrate with Apple HealthKit. Both of these statements cannot be true, and getting hostile and defensive with your customers is not the answer. If your employers are saying one thing to the media while insisting that you give us conflicting information here, talk to them about it ... don't take it out on us. All we're asking for is honesty and common decency. If you're upset at being forced to keep up this charade, I suggest that you do as the rest of us have done ... move on to a company that values its customers (and employees). 

[SunsetRunner]

This would be a great feature for Fitbit , specially integrating the Heart Rate Readings into Apple Health

[dtherio]

@zapleahy,

Maybe if your reply wasn't so **ahem**y and condescending people might believe you more. 

Funny thing is last fall I received a reply from technical support stating that they pulled Healthkit integration due to a few changes Apple made. That implies that they have done the required work to support HealthKit already.

It seems Fitbit is somewhat reverting to their old ways. When I bought the original fitbit they hide every post on their forums that even hinted that someone might be having a problem. That is part of the reason why I returned that product (plus they fact it recorded "steps" while it was sitting on my coffee table).

The only reason why I came back to fitbit was an app company I was beta testing for sent me one as a thank you. Fitbit's support and product had greatly improved. I really enjoyed my Flex. Then last fall I purchased a Charge. I very much like my Charge. Other than the lack of support for HealthKit, I do (mostly) like the app. I like the challenges (though I would like to see the limit per challenge increased). 

With the way the company is responding on here I doubt I will purchase another product from them. (please Allison, no condescending comments about this)

As mentioned previously, I purchased a competitors weight scale. At this rate I wouldn't be surprised to see Fitbit move to drop all support for Apple products. It they do, it will be their loss. 

[SunsetRunner]

@dtherio so I've been using SyncSolver, which is able to get just about all the data I want out of fitbit and adds it to healthkit.  the outstanding one is heart rate, but the last message I receieved on the forums was to beta test their newest api (oath 2.0) I contacted the developer of SyncSolver and they are simply waiting for Fitbit to go live with the newest API.  I don't like that i have to go to a 3rd party to get the data I want, but SyncSolver does do a great job, and the dev is up to date with his updates.  

my 2 cents.

[dtherio]

Hi @seecoolcuy. I also have SyncSolver. Unfortunately it doesn't record sleep properly. I emailed the developer and wasn't impressed with his reply. It doesn't sound like he cares about accuracy for that metric.

[SunsetRunner]

@dtherio just checked my last week's sleep information and it matches what fitbit says.  I use a fitbit charge hr, and the data matches from fitbit's dashboard and my healthkit app (thanks to syncsolver.  is the data in your fitibit dashboard matching what syncsolver says?

[dtherio]

Hi @SunsetRunner (spelled properly this time!) It doesn't not match. Do to my work schedule, my partners schedule, kids and dogs I tend to sleep for a few hours, get up for a bit then back to bed. The developer of SyncSolver acknowledged that his app doesn't handle multiple sleep sessions per day. He did not indicate any plans of correcting this (to me) major failing.