The folks at Fitbit are well aware of the significant benefits that accrue when you make your self-tracking public, so they’ve built tons of social features, like making friends, into the Fitbit app. You might be leery of letting Fitbit rummage around in your contacts, but the company promises not to send anything to a contact without your permission.
If that seems reasonable, you need to give the Fitbit app permission to access your contacts and then send your request:
1. In the Fitbit app, select Community.
2. Select the Friends tab.
The Friends tab is where the Fitbit app will eventually list all your friends, ranked in descending order of total steps taken over the past week. For now, it’s either empty or you see just yourself, as shown in the Android version in the following figure.
The Android version of the Friends tab
3. Select the Add Friend icon (labeled in the figure).
4. Select the Contacts tab.
5. Give Fitbit permission to access your contacts:
The Fitbit app’s Contacts tab now displays two lists. At the top you see X Contacts with Fitbit, where X is the number of people the Fitbit app found in your contacts who have a Fitbit account. Below that list you see the Contacts without Fitbit list.
6. Select the Add Friend icon beside the contact you want to add.
The Add Friend icon turns into a clock icon, indicating that the app is waiting for the other person to accept (or — horrors! — reject) your friend request.
If you know some people on Facebook who have a Fitbit, it might be easier to add them as Fitbit friends by letting the Fitbit app scour your Facebook connections. Fitbit claims that they won’t reach out to any Facebook friend without asking you first, so why not? Before this can happen, you have to give the Fitbit app permission to access your Facebook account.
In the sections that follow, you give Fitbit permission to access your Facebook account. If, down the road, you want to revoke that permission, you have to do it on the Facebook site. Log in to your Facebook account, select Settings→Apps and Websites, select the Fitbit check box, and then select Remove.
1. Select Community.
2. Select the Friends tab.
3. Select the Add Friend icon (labeled in the figure).
4. Select the Facebook tab.
5. Select Connect Facebook.
The app prompts you to log in to your Facebook account.
6. Enter your Facebook login credentials, and then select Log In.
A screen shows you what Facebook permissions you’re giving to the Fitbit app.
7. Select Continue as Name, where Name is your first name.
The Fitbit app connects to your Facebook account and examines your friends to see which of them have Fitbit accounts.
The Fitbit app’s Facebook tab now displays a list of your Facebook friends who have a Fitbit account.
8. Select the Add Friend icon beside the Facebook friend you want to add.
The Add Friend icon turns into a clock icon, indicating that the app is waiting for the other person to accept (or summarily reject) your friend request.
1. Go to Fitbit app and log in to your account.
2. In the Friends tile, select Connect Facebook.
Fitbit prompts you to log in to your Facebook account.
3. Enter your Facebook login credentials, and then select Log In.
A screen shows you what Facebook permissions you’re giving to the Fitbit app.
4. Select Continue as Name, where Name is your first name.
Fitbit connects to your Facebook account. After a few moments, the Friends tile displays a list of your Facebook friends who have a Fitbit account.
5. Select the Add Friend button beside the person you want to add.
By default, Fitbit displays only a few Facebook friends in the Friends tile. To see the rest of your Fitbit-connected Facebook friends, hover the mouse pointer over the Friends tile, select See More and then select the Show All link that appears above your Facebook friends list (which Fitbit labels May We Suggest).
The Add Friend icon turns into a clock icon, indicating that Fitbit is waiting for the other person to accept (or — say it isn’t so — reject) your friend request.
If you know the email address of a person’s Fitbit account, you can send a friend request to that email address.
1. In the Fitbit app, select Community.
2. Select the Friends tab.
3. Select the Add Friend icon (labeled in the figure).
4. Select the Email tab.
5. Enter the person’s email address.
When the address is complete, the Fitbit app displays a friend request for that person.
6. Select the Add Friend icon beside the friend request.
The Add Friend icon turns into a clock icon, indicating that the app is waiting for the other person to accept (or — boo! — reject) your friend request.
1. Go to Fitbit and log in to your account.
2. In the Friends tile, select Invite Friends.
If you’ve already connected your Facebook account to Fitbit, you won’t see the Invite Friends link. Instead, hover your mouse pointer over the Friends tile, select Find Friends and then select Invite by Email.
Fitbit displays the Invite Friends by Email window.
3. In the Email Addresses text box, enter an email address for each person you want to invite.
When you complete an address, type a space or a comma or press tab to complete the address and move to the next one.
Fitbit displays a sneak peek of your friend request in the Message Preview pane.
4. When you’ve entered all your addresses, select Send Invitation.
Fitbit ships out your friend requests.
1. In the Fitbit app, select Community.
2. Select the Friends tab.
3. Select the Add Friend icon (labeled in the figure).
4. Select the Username tab.
5. Enter the person’s username.
When the username is complete, the Fitbit app displays a friend request for that person.
6. Select the Add Friend icon beside the friend request.
The Add Friend icon turns into a clock icon, indicating that the app is waiting for the other person to accept (or ungratefully reject) your friend request.
Paul McFedries is a lifelong runner, hiker, fitness nut, and self-tracker with a downright ridiculous collection of Fitbits, GPS watches, heart-rate monitors, fitness apps, and other health-related tracking gear. Paul has written nearly 100 books that have sold more than four million copies throughout the solar system.
