fitbitr: An R Interface To The Fitbit API

Description

This package provides functions to get your Fibit intraday activity data to R in a tidy form. It uses the Fitbit API to access the data. The maximal time resolution for the heart rate data is 1 second and 1 minute for other features (as a comparison, intraday time resolution of the fitbitScraper package is 15 minutes).

Available intraday features:

• calories
• steps
• distance
• floors
• elevation
• hear rate

Installation

devtools::install_github("avsecz/fitbitr")

Main functions

• get_fitbit_token
• get_activity
• refresh_fitbit_token
• fitbit_GET
• fitbit_parse

Usage

1. Authorization

1. Create a developer account at the fitbit developer page https://dev.fitbit.com/.

2. Login to https://dev.fitbit.com/ and register your application (click 'REGISTER AN APP'):

• Application Name: 'GetMyData' (free choice)
• Description: 'This is an app used by the fitbitr package.' (free choice)
• Application website: 'https://github.com/' (free choice)
• Organization: 'GetMyData' (free choice)
• Organization Website: 'https://github.com/' (free choice)
• OAuth 2.0 Application Type: 'Personal'
• Callback URL: 'http://localhost:1410/' (note the slash at the end, related to #2)
• Default Access Type: 'Read-only'

It is important to use the last three points as listed above.

3. Copy the credentials (Application Name, Client ID and Client Secret) into the file ~/.fitbitr, each to its own row:

<Application Name>
<OAuth 2.0 Client ID>
<Client Secret>

Example ~/.fitbitr file:

GetMyData2
395A3C
4124asdasdfjapf9uq0w9r7q09573597

4. Make ~/.fitbitr readable only by you:

chmod 600 ~/.fitbitr

5. Install the fitbitr package and create the access token in R:

## install_github("avsecz/fitbitr")
library(fitbitr)
token <- get_fitbit_token()

You can answer with '2' to the question: Use a local file to cache OAuth access credentials between R sessions?

Allow the application (GetMyData) to access your fitbit data in the browser. Make sure all the checkboxes are ticked to have full access. Login if neccessary.

You should see 'Authentication complete. Please close this page and return to R.'. Congrats!

2. Querying your data

You can now query your own data. The main function is get_activity. Example:

dt <- get_activity(from_date = "2016-04-13", token = token)

Requests left:
132 / 150 (reset in 11 min, at 00:00:01)

Check the documentation of get_activity for more information.

Getting the information about number of requests left

Use function rate_limit:

rate_limit(token)

Requests left:
132 / 150 (reset in 11 min, at 00:00:01)

Expired token

Token expires at some point. To refresh it, use fitbit_refresh_token:

token <- fitbit_refresh_token(token)

Writing your own GET requests

Get familiar with the documentation at https://dev.fitbit.com/docs/. Use fitbit_GET and fitbit_parse to make API requests. Example (accessing sleep data):

req <- fitbit_GET("1/user/-/sleep/date/2015-12-12.json", token = fitbit_token ) 
output <- fitbit_parse(req)

Please make a pull request if you wrote a cool new query function.

Troubleshooting:

1. In case you get the following errors:

Error in curl::curl_fetch_memory(url, handle = handle) (from api_best_practice.R!12568FoJ#2) : 
  Timeout was reached

or

Error in refresh_oauth2.0(self$endpoint, self$app, self$credentials, self$params$user_params) (from basic_api_functions.R#10) : 
  Unauthorized (HTTP 401).

Refresh your token using fitbit_refresh_token:

fitbit_token <- fitbit_refresh_token(fitbit_token)

2. Token refresh doesn't solve the issue

Reset your credentials on the fitbit developer page: https://dev.fitbit.com/apps/details/. Click 'Reset consumer Key/Secret' and overwrite the new Client (consumer) secret in your credentials file: ~/.fitbitr.