October 2014 Fitbit API Updates and Deprecations

[JeremiahFitbit]

Heart Rate, GPS, and OAuth 2.0 Coming Soon

Today, Fitbit announced three exciting new products: Charge, Charge HR, and Surge. We're also excited to announce that the Fitbit API will provide access to the all day heart rate and GPS data from these devices. These data types will be accessible exclusively via OAuth 2.0. We'll be sharing more information about these new endpoints and our OAuth 2.0 transition in the coming months.

HTTPS Required on November 3, 2014

As announced in August, connections to api.fitbit.com will be restricted to HTTPS connections on November 3, 2014. TLS will be required on all api.fitbit.com endpoints, including all steps of OAuth.

TLS creates a secure communication channel between your application and Fitbit's API, ensuring user data is not accessed or tampered by unauthorized parties. If your application uses HTTP plaintext connections, you need to update it to use HTTPS immediately. Applications still using HTTP plaintext connections will stop functioning on November 3, 2014. The Fitbit API will return a HTTP 403 error to all non-TLS requests.

For most applications, changing "http://" to "https://" is all that is necessary to comply with this change.

Deprecations

XML

Less than 5% of third-party Fitbit API requests are using XML. Going forward, new endpoints will be optimized for and exclusively available in JSON.

Custom Logging Endpoints

The following API endpoints are deprecated and will be removed at a future date:

• API-Get-Heart-Rate (will be replaced with heart rate time series endpoints)
• API-Log-Heart-Rate
• API-Delete-Heart-Rate-Log
• API-Get-Blood-Pressure
• API-Log-Blood-Pressure
• API-Delete-Blood-Pressure-Log
• API-Get-Glucose
• API-Log-Glucose
• API-Get-Body-Measurements
• API-Log-Body-Measurements

All measurements except fat and weight will be removed from:

• API-Get-Body-Measurements
• API-Log-Body-Measurements

If you have questions about this notice, please post here.

–The Fitbit API Team

[thebossman]

Hi, I am looking to use the Fitbit API heart rate values on a per second basis to process real-time HR information. I am wondering if the new OAuth2.0 will allow for this. Any ideas?

[Michael]

@thebossman No, Fitbit has not announced any plans to allow direct, or real time, access to their trackers. Their API only allows access to data synced on to their servers. You certainly can add, or vote for, it in the Feature Request forum.

[bbarrera]

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JeremiahFitbit wrote:  Custom Logging Endpoints

The following API endpoints are deprecated and will be removed at a future date:

• API-Get-Heart-Rate (will be replaced with heart rate time series endpoints)
• API-Log-Heart-Rate

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@JeremiahFitbit will there be a replacement for API-Log-Heart-Rate? As a practical example, I log rides in Strava and want the ride with HR & GPS to show up as an activity in Fitbit. I'm developing a targeted fitness app and would like to do the same, but do not see an API for this use case.

[JeremiahFitbit]

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@bbarrera wrote:

@JeremiahFitbit will there be a replacement for API-Log-Heart-Rate? As a practical example, I log rides in Strava and want the ride with HR & GPS to show up as an activity in Fitbit. I'm developing a targeted fitness app and would like to do the same, but do not see an API for this use case.

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@bbarrera: TCX import is something we're considering. Thanks for letting us know that you'd be interested in this feature!

[bbarrera]

@JeremiahFitbit lack of full export from Strava to Fitbit is a real problem and one reason to not recommend Fitbit Surge to avid Strava users... those of us that use Strava app to receive real-time updates on segments just ridden. I've broken into the top 10 list on several local segments, always pushing hard to climb the leaderboard, and value the instant feedback from Strava app on my phone after completing a segment. I'm also unable to get accurate HR from Surge while riding a bike. Its really disappointing that a web API does not exist to import full activities (time/HR/GPS) logged by other means. Thanks for listening.

[orujon]

Will there be an API to set the custom heart rate zone? If so, will it be limited to just one zone? (More would be good.)

The heart rate zones that we use in our fitness classes don't quite match the built in zones. For example we would count 60-69% of max hr as light cardio time, and count nothing below 60%, but the built in fat burn zone is 50-69%.

Thanks,

Jon

[bennett-ITH]

This message was never replied to.

There is currently no official alternative for the glucose and blood pressure endpoints. Can we have an official statement on that?

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@wuestenblume wrote:

Hi,

I was looking into using the Fitbit API to develop an app to let me track my blood glucose readings using my smartphone. Is there a reason why the ability to log/view glucose readings will no longer be available? Will there be any alternative? I'm not going to lie, I was extremely disappointed to read this announcement.

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