Auto Syncing

[whittakerb]

Hi All

I investigating for a company that is looking to use  a fitbit to keep track of the activity of disabled individuals

My understanding was that the fitbit would auto sync to the app and therefore up to the web API however apparently in a later update this was removed

Is this completely gone or is there a way to re-enable this feature?

Thanks

[Gordon-C]

Hi @whittakerb 

The Fitbit device should auto-sync to the mobile application every 15 minutes as long as the mobile application is running and there is an active cellular/wi-fi connection.   We made this functionality the default behavior so it should always be on.   Is the manual sync working?   What Fitbit device and mobile platform are you using?

Gordon

[whittakerb]

Hi @Gordon-C 

Thanks for the reply

I am developing the tool to pull the information from the web API from the watch i have no actual testing experience in this scenario

The background really is that Fitbit has been removed from our options as viable devices due to information that you can only upload the data from the watch via a manual push. I wanted to clarify this and find a definitive answer that this was not the case however all documentation  online highlights the need to use the manual push.

Is 15 minutes the minimum push time assuming we have a tablet plugged in with the app running?

Cheers

[Gordon-C]

The default automatic sync period for all Fitbit devices is 15 minutes.  After the sync, the data is available through the Web APIs.  However, it sounds like you might be interested or being using the Device SDK to get the data off the smart watches.   If that's the case, then you can get the data at a different rate which would be controlled by the app or clockface you build.   We have some people who stream the heart rate data real-time off the smart watches using the Device SDK.

Are you trying to get the data via the Device SDK or Web APIs?    

[whittakerb]

Thanks for the info @Gordon-C 

I was planning on just using the web API to pull information down in intervals - by the sounds of it every 15 minutes is the best i can do and would keep the data at the most up to date point. If this was possible I was going to make an Intra day request as well to get more granular detail

However I didn't think about a device SDK approach! - correct me if I'm wrong because i may be thinking of this in the wrong way - are you suggesting we can  override the default 15 minute sync time with Realtime processing if we make our own app? Is there any documentation on this?

If so Heartrate real time data is something that would be extremely useful for helping understand the behaviour of the individuals for safer monitoring

Thanks

[Gondwana]

Yes, you can get real-time data (eg, streaing heart-rate with well below 1 second latency) using the Device API. It has greater challenges, though.

https://dev.fitbit.com/build/reference/device-api/

[Gordon-C]

Thank you @Gondwana !!

@whittakerb  .. If you have any questions about the Device SDK, technical support is managed through the forums at https://community.fitbit.com/t5/SDK-Development/bd-p/sdk.   Fitbit and the community developers can help answer questions and provide suggestions about challenges you may experience.