Sync Fitbit to HealthKit

Sync Fitbit to HealthKit

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Although Fitbit doesn’t officially support HealthKit, there is a third-party app available that will allow you to view your step data in HealthKit.

The Wristband Manager app was recently updated to incorporate support for HealthKit.  It can take your data from Fitbit and place it into Apple’s Health app for you.  While this does require a few more steps than native integration would, this may be the best solution for now as it doesn’t look like Fitbit plans to update their app for HealthKit any time soon.

UPDATE: Sync Solver was also recently released that also places your FitBit data into Apple’s Health app.  Unlike Wristband Manager, it will try to automatically sync throughout the day, which is a very convenient feature.

Unfortunately, all steps are lumped together at midnight for each day, so the steps automatically counted by your iPhone 5S (or newer) get mixed in.

Sync Solver suggests doing the following:

  • Open the Health app and navigate to Health Data > Fitness > Steps > Share Data.
  • Next, tap Edit in the top right corner and drag Sync Solver to the top of the list of Data Sources. This will make Sync Solver the highest priority Data Source in Health, which will instruct Health to use data from Sync Solver instead of the built-in sensor on the iPhone.

If you still see double-counting, you need to manually delete the iPhone steps periodically.  Here is a semi-quick way to do that:

  • Tap the orange “Steps” graph on your Dashboard (or navigate to “Health Data” > “Fitness” > “Steps”).
  • Tap “Share Data” underneath the graph.
  • Under “Data Sources”, tap “(Your name)’s iPhone 5S/6/6 Plus”.
  • A list of the iPhone’s steps (only) should appear. Tap “Edit” in the top right corner.
  • Tap “Clear All” in the top-left corner, then tap the “Delete All” confirmation pop-up.
  • Go back and you should only see your Fitbit steps on the Steps graph (you may need to restart the Health app to redraw the line graph).
  • Repeat every so often to eliminate the double-counting between Wristband Manager / Sync Solver and your iPhone (and hope that a future iOS update will allow you turn off the iPhone’s pedometer in the Health app altogether).

While it’s definitely not a perfect solution, this at least allows you to get your step data into Apple’s Health app.

Check out Wristband Manager on the App Store

Check out Sync Solver (with automatic background syncing) on the App Store

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