One app, multiple accounts

[TicTaco]

Hi,

For my work I'm looking for a way to sync multiple fitbits to the accounts of their owners.

Much simpler would it be to have one app for me where I can set-up accounts for multiple users. Then, when I visit people I can easily sync the fitbit that the participant wears. Just by pressing the appropriate button of that participant in the app.

What we do now: ask participants to hold a journal of their steps... manually. Very time-consuming. Certainly if we want to make graphs and reports out of this data.

Note-1: this regards participants who do not have the skills to install the app or to set-up an account (to notice that the battery of their fitbit is empty.).  Most of them don't have a smart device.

Note-2: In order to set up an account I use forward e-mailadresses - to my own -  and minimal participant data to enter. So that way, I am able to maintain the account on their behalf.

The question:

Is there such an app to help coaches like me to get insight in participants daily activity?

[JonFitbit]

Using Fitbit Ionic and the new SDK, a developer could create an application which sync'd data to a central server, where it could be presented in the required format.

Alternatively, a developer could create a service which queries the Fitbit Web APIs to collate data for individual users. This would require some work, but it's technically possible.

None of these are available as out of the box solutions at the moment, as far as I know.

[TicTaco]

It's not quite what we need. An app on a fitbit device requires an user that operates it. The problem is the user. We use the fitbit zip a lot. Very simple: no recharging with usb cables an very basic (read: simple) way of operating.

The web api is very simple to connect to but it requires syncing first. Our wish is a solution for the part before data collecting. It's about getting the data on the fitbit servers.

fitabase offers a platform out of the box to connect to multiple users.

Fitbits are able to connect to the standard app on smart devices. Even the zip. But it requires the app to be logged in to the users fitbit account. So my idea was: make a smart device (Android/iOs) app with just buttons for different users. When pressing a button the app logs into the user account, synchronises with the paired device and logs out again. Data on the server can than be retrieved with the api.

But I can see problems with storing account information within an app. Maybe it's possible to authorize an app for connecting with a specific Fitbit (by mac address). Also, there must be a way of authorizing just that smart device, or user(group) in the app on that smart device, to sync with that specific Fitbit.

The smart device app could then passthrough the data to the fitbit platform. Every Fitbit has a mac address which is linked to a user so that shouldn't be to difficult. If the app has multiple authorizations it could just scan the proximity for devices it's allowed to sync.

Is something like this possible and maybe already in the progress of being real?
Does fitbit have an api for passthrough syncing to embed in iOS/android apps?

[TicTaco]

Does anyone have same issues regarding users being the weakest link?

[cynorg]

I have an option that *might* work, if the fitbits of today still sync how they did ~3 years ago when I and a coworker were testing some of this.  The sync process back then didn't actually require you be logged in or associated with the account tied to the device - basically, if you had the fitbit software running on a PC, and a fitbit came into range (any fitbit, no relation to you required) it would attempt to connect and pull the information and upload it to fitbits servers.

Assuming this is a corporate initiative - if you're providing the devices, you could provision them with accounts linked to the employees email addresses (or an assigned email that delivers to a role account or something) and set the devices up that way, then have a computer running bluetooth that's nearby enough to the break room or something similar, that can just pick up the data and sync.

That sync process may well have changed, or may in the future, though - which would limit this solution greatly.

[TicTaco]

A pc requires it to be running.

I came across this:

http://actigraphcorp.com/products-showcase/cdh/

A hub at homes. Would be just perfect!

Can fitbit make such a device?

[Rich_Laue]

You can do this with a windows 10 or a MAC computer.. @TicTaco there is a good chance you have everything you need already. 

In the win10 app choose Fitbit connect mode. 

The MAC is already setup. 

Now whenever the computer does a sync, either forced or background, it will attempt to sync ever tracker that it can communicate with. That could be one or one hundred trackers. 

Since a sync is not infuriated from the tracker that box you point too will need some major firmware update. 

[TicTaco]

A solution is this:

https://bitbucket.org/benallard/galileo

Sync all fitbits in proximity of a Raspberry Pi.

Setting up a fitbit with an user account still needs to be done manually but that's not a problem.

Raspberry pi can easily be put near a participants power-meter. Connect it to a power outlet and with ethernet to their router ... voilà.

[HCB999]

Thank you … Galileo looks like a good solution … I can set it up in a windows environment as well, can’t I?

Also, since synchronization is not stable (Galileo does not assure that every tracker in the room is synced, it simply tries to sync whatever tracker it catches),
I need a fast way to read the last sync date on each tracker (in order to force sync on these devices if necessary).

Logging in and out into each account would be too time consuming - is there a command line way to read last sync date , e.g. within the Galileo framework or python-titbit?

Best regards,
Holger

[HCB999]

you wrote: In the win10 app choose Fitbit connect mode. 

Couldn't find this option. Can you give me a hint where to choose this option?

Thank you

Holger

[TicTaco]

Part of a solution.

Made a Filemaker app (FM 16 is needed) which can get FitBit data from accounts and put their activity (steps) into a bar graph.

It automatically refreshes the accesstoken when the authorization process generates an error.

If anyone has improvements I'm happy to know.

The file is here.

[Rich_Laue]

If your looking to easily sync multiple trackers then Fitbit connect of the Win 10 app in connect mode will do this. 

If you looking to get access to the data in multiple accounts. this can easily be done through Fitbits API. I have had up to 4 Fitbit accounts have their data dropped into a single spreadsheet through the API. 

FM is designed to pull data from multiple accounts, after a sync has occured. The OP is requesting an app to easily sync multiple trackers to their respective accounts. 

[STEMLinAlg]

Could you re post that file. That link doesn't seem to work anymore.