Withings Scale Integration

[mccrearyp]

I'm getting an error when I try integrate Fitbit's service with my Withings scale. I tried to use this site: https://www.fitbit.com/weight/withings

and I get the following error:

• Cannot link Withings profile at this time. Withings server returned the following error: The userid and publickey do not match, or the user does not share its data.

My user name and password are correct. I can see the list of profiles on my account, but once I try to select one and move forward I get the aforementioned error.

[Michael_AF]

Did the integration ever work for you before? I think that the withings integration is generally broken as similar experiences to yours have already been reported about a year ago. This is alos the time when my withings scale stoped the integration with fitbit and the data waas synced perfectly before.

I tried setting up the connection again today and I also receive this message now:

The userid and publickey do not match, or the user does not share its data. 

[AndrewFitbit]

@Michael_AF @mccrearyp Trying using IFTTT, it's a good workaround in my opinion.

[Michael_AF]

Okay thank you for the hint. Let's see if this works 😉

The recipee in IFTTT is called:

If I weight myself with my Withings scale, update my weight on Fitbit as well.

[Ice_Nine]

Is this going to be fixed anytime soon?

[Michael_AF]

The problem exists until approx one year now. This is the moment when my scale stoped working after opperating reliable for 2 years.

[Ice_Nine]

And no one has been able to address this issue? Do you know if the problem is on the withings or the fitbit side?

[shiftylock]

Also experiencing this issue. Started a few days ago. My Withings scale is syncing with other 3rd party apps... appears to be a FitBit issue

[AndrewFitbit]

@mccrearyp @Michael_AF @Ice_Nine @shiftylock

I don't think there is an issue. The only reason you will see that error is if you're entering your Withings credentials incorrectly when prompted. I was able to create a Withings account/profile and link it successfully. Just remember that when you get to that step, you're entering your Withings username/password, not your Fitbit username/password.

[Ice_Nine]

There absolutely is an issue. 

When I enter my credentials and click "Next", that login is 100% successful and returns a small list of profiles for me to select from within my withings account. I have two users of my Withings scale, me and my wife. During this step, I select my profile and click "Next", and that is when the error occurs. 

This happens with any profile I attempt to link. I also attempted to link a completely separate account that only had one profile associated with it. This also fails. Regardless, it appears as if the login is 100% successful, since if I try to enter a knowingly incorrect password, I receive a password failure and none of my withings profiles are shown. 

I am definitely using my Withings username and password.

Andrew, can you confirm where you created your Withings account? I have tried 3 new accounts so far unsuccessfully. I am starting to think that perhaps Withings' newer devices (like the "Cardio" scale I am trying to link) use a different kind of withings account?

[AndrewFitbit]

@Ice_Nine Hm, interesting. Here's what I did:

1. Went to the account section of Withings

2. Created a Withings account, then created a profile

3. Used the connection wizard at https://www.fitbit.com/weight/withings

4. Entered my Withings credentials, selected my profile, clicked next

5. Fitbit + Withings are now linked

[Ice_Nine]

Very interesting! 

So creating an "empty" account with no devices attached seems to "fix" this problem. 

So yes, you are correct in that there is no problem here *UNLESS* you already have a Withings account that has devices associated with it. Then it will NOT work and will generate the error I was having before. The problem Fitbit will always have with this scenario though is that most people who purchase a Withings scale will need to use the Smartphone/Tablet app to set it up, and during that process it will also set up the new account and automatically associate the new scale with it. This is what seems to be causing the "problem". 

So basically to everyone who is having issues getting their Withings account to sync up, what you need to do is do everything AndrewFitbit listed in his response above - and MAKE SURE THE ACCOUNT IS BLANK/NEW/HAS NO DEVICES ATTACHED when you link it to fitbit via the Withings wizard. 

Once you have linked your Fitbit and Withings account via the Withings wizard, you can then add your scale successfully. I linked my Withings Body Cardio that I just purchased yesterday, and after doing 5 trial weigh-ins, the data is now showing up on my Fitbit account.

Thanks to AndrewFitbit for this workaround! I do hope you will pass on the additional information in this post to the folks who perform API sorcery at Fitbit, as clearly this issue will be confusing to customers who don't know that a Withings account has to be "new/fresh/empty" before linking it with Fitbit, as that's what seems to have caused this issue to happen in my instance. 

[Ice_Nine]

One other item of note: Once you have successfully linked the Withings account in its "blank/clean" state, you can add as many profiles as you like and they will apparently successfully link with your other family members' fitbit accounts. 

[AndrewFitbit]

@Ice_Nine Awesome! 🙂

That's a good callout though, I didn't realize the process behaves differently when there are no devices paired (since I don't have a device to pair). Thanks for playing around with that, hopefully that helps other users!

[streamer444]

Its not working now even with new account....

[Ice_Nine]

I just tested it and it still works for me. 

However, I did create a brand new fitbit account (and a new withings account) for this purpose, as I don't want to mess up my already linked "primary" accounts.

This is what I did:

1. Logged out of my fitbit account
2. Created a new fitbit account (SEE PROTIP BELOW!!!)
3. Logged out of my withings account
4. Created a new Withings account and profile (again, see protip below)
5. Went to the Fitbit Withings Weight wizard and linked the account and profile.

I did this just now and it worked just fine. If it is not working for an existing and established fitbit account, then it's just more evidence that the problem is actually on the fitbit side of the house and not the withings side. Either way, i'm confident they'll get it sorted out. I sent all of the information I had about this issue over to the Withings folks as well, and they've since responded to me in acknowledgement of the issue, and say that they are addressing it. But as of 5 minutes ago, the old workaround of linking new accounts still seems to work. 

PROTIP: If you want to use the same email address multiple times for testing (because making new gmail accounts is a real pain in the glutteus maximus region), do the following:

Let's say your email address is joesixpack2208@gmail.com, and is a functioning gmail account. You can append a "plus" sign '+' and add additional characters to make the account name unique, but still use the 'main' address for all correspondence. So if you sign up for Withings and Fitbit with the email address of joesixpack2208+fitnessaccount@gmail.com, it will still be unique to use as a new account for signups, but the email will still go to joesixpack2208@gmail.com. Very useful for creating "test" accounts without having to sign up for multiple "test" Google accounts that you'll ultimately forget about anyway 🙂 

[mccrearyp]

I really appreciate all the help and tips everyone has been providing. I think getting the integration to work regardless of existing accounts would be the best solution. Losing all the historical data is not ideal as I use Withings for tracking other things like blood pressure.

Ideally the Fitbit service would pull in all my historical weight data from Withings and sync with any new weigh ins. However, I would be happy just keeping my existing Fitbit data and syncing the new weights from Withings. Unfortunately the solution that does that using the IFTTT service fails with some error about a timestamp set in the future. I'm still playing around with stuff on my end, but I'm looking forward to a more streamlined solution from Fitbit.

[Ice_Nine]

I completely agree - and I have already told both sides support teams that an issue still in fact exists and requires addressing despite the fact that I was able to work around it.

I completely understand that Fitbit has their own Aria scale that competes with withings' scale offerings and that this might not seem like much of a priority to them. But the fact that the Aria hasn't seen a refresh in years tells me that they're putting all their efforts into their fitness trackers - which is where I think such effort belongs. To me, that means Fitbit should ensure that they can at least provide connectivity/linkability to other accounts that live within the 'fitness ecosystem' and possibly place more of a priority to ensuring that third-party data is consistently readable within the fitbit platform. 

All frustration aside, it appears that Fitbit is at least trying. I can't imagine cross-company integration being an easy feat, particularly amongst competitors who all want to sell their own brand.  But Fitbit has categorically done two things incredibly well - create desirable fitness trackers, as well as provide a software platform that makes it truly useful. You can't have one without the other, and all the other 'fitness ecosystem' players could learn a few good lessons from that. 

[NancyJames]

The response I got from Withings was

"There is currently a software bug impacting the connection to Fitbit. Our development team is working to resolve this, though I have not been provided with a specific date for a solution. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

So they know about it and they're working on it but have no idea when they'll have fixed it.

[Ice_Nine]

Well, that's progress I guess 🙂