Fitbit is cleaning up their app. Open groups, challenges and adventures will soon disappear.
Fitbit explains that it is working to improve the experience offered by its app in order to offer its users the best fitness tools, and this seems to include the removal of a number of very practical features. Starting March 27, public groups and Fitbit challenges and adventures will not be available on the company’s app, owned by the giant Google. The company explains that these features are “of limited use,”meaning users don’t use them enough to justify further development and maintenance.
Fitbit cleans up its app
Unlike closed groups, which are invite-only, open groups allow anyone in the community to join by submitting a request. Users can browse the list by going to the “Groups”section of the app’s “Community”tab and looking for the ones they think might match them. Users have requested that public groups be easier to create once the pandemic hits — apparently, groups created through the app are automatically set to private — and the Fitbit team said they are considering adding this capability. But now it looks like she’s decided to ditch open groups altogether.
Public groups, challenges and adventures will soon disappear
On the other hand, Fitbit Challenges are events that users can participate in, such as a competition to see who can take the most steps in a day. Adventures reward people for walking to unlock virtual trails like Yosemite Park’s Valley Loop and 180-degree landscape views that accompany them based on their number of steps. Users will lose any trophies or rewards earned in these challenges when they leave the app, but data can be downloaded until March 27th. Finally, the company is also ditching Fitbit Studio, its tool for creating apps and watch faces. For now, only the command line tools for building applications will be saved.