API Rate Limit

[R8VXF]

Just trying to download my wife's and my own data at intraday level, but keep smashing into the api rate limit of 150(??) requests/hr per logged in user. I realise I can contact the api team and ask for a higher limit (maybe just for a short term so I can get the data down), but wondered why such a low limit for a company who is supposedly one of the largest fitness firms on the planet? I was just wondering what sort of overall rpm you were seeing that 150rph was considered sensible? Maybe at least double it to 365 so we can get a years worth of data per activity per user an hour.

[SunsetRunner]

We know that backfilling a user's historic Fitbit data is an API request intensive use-case that is not well handled by the current design of the Fitbit API.

Many historic data queries create a burden on the Fitbit API infrastructure. Recent data is heavily cached, as it is the most frequently accessed data. As data ages, it is bumped from our database cache. Retrieving non-cached data creates more overhead for our database, especially if your application has many users. For this reason, we require that applications doing this stay within the standard API rate limit.

Keep in mind the rate limit resets at the top of the hour and you are immediately able to make another 150 requests at that time. We understand that this isn't ideal from your application point of view and you will need to implement a little more additional logic to wait for the rate limit reset.

[R8VXF]

Sorry, as a DBA, that is a C&P pasted bs response. you are basically relying on fastly or some other CDN for caching rather than improving your owncapabilities. The same response was posted over a year ago on these very same forums. Bet your hit rates are not actually that high and you really need a decent DBA to sort your DB design out.

I have 2 users. Me and my wife. I have 59 minutes an hour to get bored of waiting to load another few days worth of data. Try employing a good DBA. you would be amazed what a database really can do.

[JeremiahFitbit]

@R8VXF: If you're claiming to be an expert, we're hiring.

[R8VXF]

Not in the UK you aren't.

[R8VXF]

And there is no claim about it. I am good at what I do. I am just very belligerant due to dealing with developers 😉