Get the raw accelerometer data

[Sajjad]

I want to get the recorded raw accelerometer data. I have looked into the Get-Intra-Day-Time-Series function which provides data at minute level, but from the example responses it looks like they are not raw data. Also is it possible to get more frequent data (like per second) ?

[JeremiahFitbit]

Steps are aggregated to the minute level on the trackers.

[Sajjad]

I am looking for low level accelerometer data. Is it possible to get that? Will premium subscription let me access the low level accelerometer data (X,Y,Z values).

[SunsetRunner · Accepted solution]

Sorry, it is not possible to get the raw accelerometer data.

[Scott93]

HI all, is there a way that I could have access to the raw accelerometer data? I have access to the intraday data thanks to the Fitbit Support Team, but I need the raw accelerometer data to really see if the person is moving at all. It's part of a project to observe activity in stroke patients, so counting the steps they're taking is not very useful, since they're not exactly mobile enough to walk. Thanks.

[JeremiahFitbit]

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@Scott93 wrote:

HI all, is there a way that I could have access to the raw accelerometer data? I have access to the intraday data thanks to the Fitbit Support Team, but I need the raw accelerometer data to really see if the person is moving at all. It's part of a project to observe activity in stroke patients, so counting the steps they're taking is not very useful, since they're not exactly mobile enough to walk. Thanks.

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Fitbit trackers are optimized for recognizing ambulatory activity, so they do not store or transmit raw accelerometer data.

[Scott93]

All right, thank you very much.

[cesarmaeda]

Why doesn't Fitbit allow developers to access this raw accelerometer data? The applications in research of the data gathered could be very beneficial. Also, is there any way to get accelerometer data in intervals smaller than one second? Thanks!

[AltShift]

Hi Jeremiah,

I can see that it makes sense for an activity tracker to only provide the reduced data, but there is a market for a lightweight wearable that provides high-precision accelerometer data (e.g. 10-msec sampling interval or smaller).  Customers would include athletes, coaches, professional and amateur golfers, tennis players, martial artists, biomechanics students & researchers, and anybody who wants to understand the dynamics of their technique.

This could be a new product, based on an enhancement of your Charge HR.  You could probably charge a 50% premium, if the device incorporated a bit more ruggedisation and an interface for recording signals during "experiments".  (I've been looking at ways to do this with off-the-shelf components, but anything I could do would be more expensive and less rugged than what you could achieve from your existing platform.)

[AltShift]

PS:  Of course it would need gyros as well, to correctly track 3D rotations.

[Namlegz]

I am trying to figure out how much time I am moving as a function of time of day. I this data that I can get either through a Premium subscription or through the API?

For context: I am experiencing a medical issue (pain) related to motion. It does not appear to be a function of the distance I have moved. I am trying to determine whether it is a function of how much time I am moving.

At the onset of my pain, I have been recording my distance walked. Now I want to see how much time it takes me to move that distance.  Can I do this with the available data?

[JeremiahFitbit]

@Namlegz: I think you can use the minute level activity time series for this use case.

[bluefoxicy]

I assume this means Fitbit trackers store and transmit telemetry for both Normal and Sensitive sleep-analyzed data continuously, since you can add a Normal or Sensitive sleep span for any period in history during which you wore a tracker.  These two spans look fairly unrelated.

Consider this data:Normal Tracker

When switched to "Sensitive Tracker", it looks a little different:

Sensitive TrackerAs you can see, some spans of restlessness in the Sensitive version begin before spans of awake/restlessness in the Normal version.  It's plainly obvious that the "Sensitive Tracker" doesn't simply assume all non-sleep spans are times of wakefulness, but rather provides a different analysis.

In the context of sleep actigraphy, I have created a feature request to generate and expose Digital Integration of the accelerometer data.  The Fitbit would have to store an enormous amount of accelerometer data to give raw second-by-second statistics (roughly 86K/day, about 67% of the FitBit Charge 2 total memory).  Digital Integration per-minute could be done to a high (0.01g) resolution in 1.4K/day, and to a lower (0.03g) resolution in 750 bytes per day.  Huffman encoding might bring that down by half.

That is, of course, an engineering challenge.

[AltShift]

Thanks, bluefoxicy,

I needed a powerful, developer-friendly platform, so I ended up with a Microsoft Band. Storage capacity isn't an issue because I'm streaming over Bluetooth to laptop or smartphone.

I hope to add Fitbit support someday. Maybe they'll have a richer API by then.



Sent from my Sony Xperia™ smartphone on the Telstra™ Mobile network

[LMicR]

Hello -

I came across this posting from a few years ago but also know that there have been a number of changes since. Is it possible to have access to raw accelerometer data?

Thanks!

[SiddhiFitbit]

Hi,

It is now possible to access raw accelerometer data using the Accelerometer API, when building apps for Fitbit OS. For more information on how to build apps/how to use Fitbit APIs refer to https://dev.fitbit.com

[Sajjad]

Hello SiddhiFitbit,

Is it possible in Fitbit Ionic only or can be done from flex or Alta as well?

[SiddhiFitbit]

Hi Sajjad,

This is currently only supported by the Fitbit Ionic.

[yaak]

This is a simple device. I'm sure the technology it uses will improve over time. I'd much prefer more time spent  getting better Algorithms working and creating a more unified simple easy to use setting menu, then creating a new model every six month.

I'd also like to see a Yikes Moment. Such as when I'm sitting on the toilet, instead of my arm swinging motion adding to my step count, I'd like to see my Fitbit display " your cheating 😞 "

[Ben.w]

So you pass the accelerometer through some kind of transform.  I want that data.