Using Fitbit with RunGap

RunGap makes it easy to import your daily summaries from Fitbit and export them to iOS 8 HealthKit and other services.

Connecting your Fitbit Account

To connect your Fitbit account, select "Accounts & Settings" from the upper left menu and then "Fitbit." Next, you will be taken to the Fitbit site where you need to enter your email and password and tap "Allow." RunGap will now connect securely to your account and ask you if you would like to update your daily summaries. If you choose "Update" RunGap will start importing your most recent daily summaries right away. You can also choose "Disable" to leave importing disabled in case you need to tweak the settings or simply leave the connection in "Write Only" mode. You can enable and disable importing as you like later.

Please note that Fitbit only allows a single copy of RunGap to be connected to your account at any time. If you connect your account to RunGap on a second device, the first one will no longer work.  

Importing your daily summaries from Fitbit

Unless you decided to disable importing, RunGap will automatically start fetching your most recent summaries in the background as soon as you connect your account and they will soon start appearing in the "Activities" list (choose "Activities" from the menu). When the initial synchronization is complete, you can fetch new summaries from Fitbit by dragging the list down or tapping the refresh button in the "…" menu in the upper right corner in the "Activities" or "Friend Feed" lists.

If you decided to disable importing when connecting the account, you must first go back to the "Fitbit" page under "Accounts & Settings" and enable "Update Activities".

Please note that RunGap will only attempt to import your summaries for the most recent 30 days at any time. This is due to a limit imposed by the Fitbit API.

Sharing your activities on Fitbit

You can upload a single activity directly to Fitbit by opening it from the "Activities" list, tapping the "..." button in the upper right corner and choosing "Share." This will bring up a page where you can choose to share the activity to on or more of the most popular services including Fitbit along with an optional message. If the activity already exists on Fitbit, the upload will be skipped.

Similarly you can use Auto Sharing to share new workouts as they are imported from other services.

Exporting your Fitbit summaries to other services

Similar to sharing your activities to Fitbit, you can share daily summaries imported from Fitbit directly to HealthKit and other services such as Garmin Connect, Endomondo, Strava, RunKeeper and dailymile. You can also export individual or all activities in standard formats such as TCX or GPX and transfer them either directly to other apps or via Dropbox or email. Please note that some export features require the Swag Bag [1].

Disconnecting your Fitbit Account

To disconnect your Fitbit account, select "Accounts & Settings" from the upper left menu and then "Fitbit." Next, choose "Log out" to disconnect the account. Daily summaries , which have already been imported, will be preserved – but new summaries will no longer be fetched from Fitbit.

Troubleshooting

If you see the message "Fitbit service error!" it means that RunGap is unable to communicate with the Fitbit service. This is most likely a communications problem or a problem with the Fitbit service itself. Please check your Internet connection and try to log out and reconnect the service if the problem persists.

For other problems, please contact [e-mail].

Data Liberation Score

The "Data Liberation Score" is a number in the range 1–5 where 1 is poor and 5 is best. The score indicates how easy it is to access and export your hard-earned workout data from a particular service. Unfortunately it is still common practice that fitness service providers love their users so much that they can't image them leaving and either forget to put handles on the inside of the door or make the door very, very tiny. The Data Liberation Score is meant to bring some attention to this problem

Fitbit scores an OK "4" for offering an API to developers as well as a data export tool that can export all your data in XLS or CSV format.

The API is somewhat restricted by a per user rate limit which makes it impossible to retrieve many months of data quickly and a paid premium membership is required for data export. So, there is room left fro improvements.

 [1] The "Swag Bag" contains extra features and special deals reserved for RunGap users who support the development, maintenance and support of RunGap by subscribing. Choose "Swag Bag" from the upper, left main menu to get yours.