Motion Detector app development for Fitbit

[shoaib121]

Hi folks,

I am interested in developing an app for Fitbit which records Accelerometer data at a certain frequency. We send this data for clinical analysis, basically patients with Parkinson's disease will be using it. For that, we will need a phone companion app as well which will send commands/messages when to start/stop recording the data. The data will be written to a file and that file will be uploaded to our server. I am new to Fitbit environment. Is our use case possible?

Tahnks

[Gondwana]

Yes, it would be possible but very difficult. Also bear in mind that Fitbit app development isn't supported any more.

[Shazi]

@Gondwana 
Dear Gondwana, 

I'm also planning to create an app that will utilize Fitbit data. If Fitbit app development is no longer supported, could you please guide me on how to proceed? I was trying to use a tutorial from Medium as a reference, but after checking your response, I’m a bit confused. I would really appreciate your help and guidance.

https://medium.com/@asofsteixeira/integrate-your-mobile-app-with-fitbit-in-simple-steps-e59cbbcdb2e9

Thank you very much!

[Gondwana]

Sorry; my comment was a bit ambiguous. The Fitbit Device and Companion APIs appear to be unsupported, but the Web API (to which that Medium article refers) is alive and well.

The original post referred to accelerometer data, which is only available via the Device API.

[Shazi]

@Gondwana 
Dear Gondwana, 

Thank you so much!
So if I understand correctly, using data such as step counts via the Web API is possible, but not in real time.
I’m very grateful for your time and guidance.

[shoaib121]

Oh. Is there a way we can create and upload .txt files directly from the Fitbit to our server (possibly an S3 bucket)? This way, we will only be communication via simple commands like START or STOP. 

[Gondwana]

@Shazi  You're exactly right.

The Web API has its own forum here.

[Gondwana]

@shoaib121  No, not directly. The watch can only communicate directly with companion code that runs within the Fitbit app on the paired phone.The companion can use fetch or websocket to communicate with your server. Limited storage space and slow transfer speeds on the watch require careful handling. You will need to be quite experienced and very determined to make this work.

There may be some related projects here.