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My Fitbit May Be Gone

· 5 min read · #apis #fitbit #startups

A Geek’s Fitbit Ownership Post-mortem

I’m not exactly sure how long my Fitbit has been missing. It’s definitely lost, and I’m not all that worked up over it.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the thing since it arrived in February. I think it’s cool that it allows me to track general activity, but the lack of an API pisses me off to no end. I stopped using the website to check on status and enter activity a long time ago. I have more important things demanding my attention when I’m sitting in front of my computer.

If I were able to review progress and enter foods, water consumption and activities during “downtime”, such as: while waiting for a BART train, while eating breakfast, etc, I would totally be on top of it. I even went so far as to write a scraper for the Fitbit portal after I got tired of waiting for an official Fitbit API. It’s been promised for so long that I don’t care anymore if it ever arrives.

I’m a developer. For months I was passionate about the Fitbit, and purchased several of them for family members. Despite chomping at the bit in private (via emails) and in public (my TechCrunch Disrupt Hackday entry in May 2010, plus several tweets and blog posts), for a Fitbit API, Fitbit has been content to let my enthusiasm dissipate. (I’m not alone—dozens of other developers have been similarly frustrated. Just look around their forums, or Google a bit.)

So what, you say? I don’t have any published iPhone or Android apps. Providing an API might have done nothing for Fitbit, as far as it relates to me.

On the other hand, it might’ve. An app for Fitbit tracking and input is one of the first app concepts that I’ve been really motivated by. I’m a guy who needs to lose weight, and I’ve been eager to combine that need with the Fitbit *and* my fondness for my iPhone.

Nine months later, I’ve given up. I’m sure that a public API will be available eventually. They gave access to some kind of API to Google Health, so it stands to reason that someday they’ll give access to enough other people that the mobile monitoring and input that I want will be available.

By then, however, I won’t care. It took me over a week to notice that my Fitbit was indeed gone — I thought during most of that time that it was sitting on its charger. It’s not there, and after five additional minutes of looking for it, I figured my time was better spent writing this post than continuing to hunt for it. During that five minutes of looking, I realized that I hadn’t looked at my stats in at least a week prior to losing it — probably more like a month.

By not giving me a way to make Fitbit sticky for myself or for others, I’ll never participate in any of the recurring revenue features the Fitbit team spent their time building instead of exposing a public API. Perhaps by the time they get around to doing it, they’ll have reached a critical mass and bitchy developers like me won’t matter. (Though I’d argue that bitchy developers like me already don’t matter to Fitbit.)

It’ll probably never hurt them, and that’s fine. I wish them no ill will. I’m a startup guy myself, and wish to see my fellow startup brethren be successful.

Still, I figured it noteworthy to document the arc I’ve been through:

  • product love
  • gifting product to family
  • volunteering to beta test the API at no cost (I know a little about APIs)
  • publicly calling out the company for their lack of follow-through on API promises
  • apathy
  • calling them out again
  • over week passes before I notice I don’t know where my Fitbit is

I hope this is helpful to Fitbit, or to someone. There’s no telling how many customers you lose, or don’t ever reach in the first place, by choosing to de-prioritize an open API.

#Original Post Comments

On Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:35:03 +0000, Clay Loveless responded:

Found my Fitbit. Apparently traveled through wash & completely depleted battery. Now just sits on charger and blinks empty battery symbol. Fitpaperweight?

On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 06:47:20 +0000, micand123 (Twitter) responded:

I too just lost my fitbit but for me it’s like one less hastle to have to deal with. It has been atleast two weeks since I checked my stats because I literally don’t have the time to when I’m at my desk.It they would allow developers like yourself to create a desktop program or at very least an iPhone app I maybe inclined to purchase another one but since not I am moving on.

On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 19:31:28 +0000, HealthSaaS (Twitter) responded:

I ordered a Fitbit in September and still have not recieved it. We would love to see an API so we could integrate this into our HealthSaaS PHRs.