How to get started

[vinceskahan]

sigh - these docs are so dense to the newbie (me).

Do you guys have a trivial hello-world example you can share, perhaps in something easy to read like python or ruby or the like ?

It would 'greatly' help new folks in spinning up on the API if you had a minimal fully-specified working example that could do even something as simple as:

• get through the authentication API successfully
• get your steps for the current day

The existing docs are close to unparseable to the mere mortal.  I've only been doing sysadmin/scripting for 30 years and my eyes just roll when I try to figure out how to get started.  I know it's not rocket science, but lack of 'any' fully working fully explained example code is a huge hindrance....

[JeremiahFitbit]

Hi @vinceskahan, sorry that you're having trouble.

Using the Fitbit API is straightforward:

1. Get permission from the user to access their data (uses industry standard OAuth 2.0).
2. Make a HTTP request with an Authorization header for the data that you want to access.

We only recently released OAuth 2.0 and are working on new demo apps. If you figure out how to use OAuth 2.0 with your language/framework of choice, then that's most of the work to use the Fitbit API.

[jschrimshire]

I feel your pain vinceskahan. It would be so nice if they could give just a simple working example of how to do this. I have over 20 years experience in IT and still can't figure it out. I have been working on it for two weeks using their code, and still don't have a working model yet. If I ever get it working, I plan to post the code so hopefully to save others the weeks of frustration that I have experienced.

[JeremiahFitbit]

If you can be specific, we can help.

Have you done any research in how to use an OAuth 2.0-based API?

Do you understand the concept of obtaining consent to obtain an access token?

Can you point to the place in the documentation where you're getting stuck?