Fitbit is getting rid of several community features next month

Fitbit is preparing to remove several ‘Community’ features by next month.

According to an email sent to customers, Fitbit will bid farewell to sseveral community features on March 27th in an effort to better streamline the Fitbit app experience.

All ‘adventures,’ ‘challenges’ and ‘open groups’ would be removed from the iOS and Android app starting March 27th.

Before Google’s $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit back in 2019, one of the wearable company’s major strengths was its community-driven social features.

Adventures, on the other hand, were launched fairly recently. They provided a type of immersive challenge where users could take virtual tours of places like Yosemite National Park while accomplishing their step goals. Open groups were groups where anyone could join around a common interest.

After March 27th, Fitbit users would no longer be able to create open groups. Fitbit will now only allow users to create private closed groups with friends and will direct users to its Health & Wellness forums to connect with others. Any trophies that you’ve earned over the years would also no longer be available.

Fitbit says that the reason behind the removal of said features is to be able to introduce “new features, deliver faster load times, and improve your experience.” Users will have until March 27th to download their data. To download your data, head to https://fitbit.com/settings/data/export.

“Fitbit found that these select features had a limited number of active users compared to other offerings, but are unable to confirm specific numbers at this time,” said Nicol Addison, head of communications at Fitbit, in an email to The Verge.

The timing of this news comes after the Fitbit app suffered a multiday server outage that left users unable to sync their data. Read more about it here.

Via: The Verge