New Dev looking for help with the API. In a time crunch as well.

[TeddyyyB]

I'm working with a team of 3 new devs on our final project at a coding boot camp.  We have two weeks to finish our project.  

We would like to incorporate the fitbit API into a web app.  I have some questions on how to go about doing that.  

1) We need to get approved before we can use the API right?

2) If so, do we need to purchase a domain before approval?

3) Is there anything we need to know that you guys would recommend?

[JeremiahFitbit]

1. No approval needed. You only need to agree to the Web API Terms of Service.
2. You don't need to purchase a domain to get started. Many people point to http://localhost/ while developing.

What platform and programming language are you planning to use?

[TeddyyyB]

Great thanks Jeremiah.  We plan to use PHP (laravel as a framework) and Javascript.

We do go ahead and go through the registration process then correct?

[JeremiahFitbit]

Tip: In your case, there are two options for OAuth 2 in your app. If you want to make API requests using PHP, use the Authorization Code Grant Flow. If you only plan on making API requests from the browser (XHR/"AJAX"), use Implicit Grant Flow.

[TeddyyyB]

Jeremiah, we are running into an issue every now and then when calling the API for a users live activity for the day. During the day it seems to always work without a hitch. But in the evening occasionally everything that returns for a users steps or calories returns as 0. Am I missing something?

[JeremiahFitbit]

This sounds like you might have a time zone issue if a person is behind UTC. Are you sure you're still requesting the user's today?

For example, in San Francisco during Daylight Savings Time, the city is 7 hours behind UTC. So at 5 PM in San Francisco, the current date in UTC is different than the date for a person in San Francisco.