Challenges that group participants based on fitness level

[JonDavidL]

My subject isn't totally the right one but the best I could come up with.  One thing I loved about my Garmin was that challenges weren't dependent on only challenging people you knew.  Their weekly step challenge is a whole community challenge.  Meaning Garmin puts you in a group with 9 other Garmin users who are at about your same level (ie Garmin knows you average 35,000 steps a week for example).  They don't have to be people you know, so it allows a much larger pool of people to compete with.  I really liked that.  I wish fitbit would do a similar thing.  There could be a setting that allows you not to be included in the community challenge pool of people if you didn't want to be paired with strangers.  Much like the way the community posting works.  You can always set yourself to "private".  Just an idea.  Hope others find it interesting and vote for it!  But I think step challenges with others, in this vast fitbit community of users, would be fun. 

Moderator edit: Subject for clarity

[jbelena]

It would be great to take part in challenges against people you don't know, maybe from the other part of the world.

In my case, none of my contacts have a fitbit account so I lose the social feature. To give an example, with Endomondo you can enroll a running challenge with many people, even if you don't know them!

It would be nice to have challenges such as:

most steps each day by:

- neighborhood

- city

- country

- all

but also, competing against people of your same age, weight, and so on.

[EmersonFitbit]

Love this idea! You have my vote. 

[AmritaFitbit]

Anonymous Challenges is a brilliant idea! We'll be sure to pass your suggestion along to the rest of the team. Should we have any word, we'll post an update here. Thanks for sharing! 

[SunsetRunner]

Agree, voted!

[CheChristi]

Yes! To see where you rank against different groups would be fascinating. Example: you are in the top 20% in Massachusetts.

[geminiwitch]

This is an excellent idea!  I think it would be great for the app to match you up with people who have similar step counts to your own as well, so you could compete with people in your own range.  This may be more motivating for people if it just takes 50-100 steps or whatever your range to keep going up and down the list in the challenges.

[jbelena]

Thank you all for your votes on this idea. Hope it is taken into further consideration!

[Gandhi]

jblena

Brilliant idea,this is all the way from India 

Regards

Dr Gandhi

[megkccj]

Love this idea!!! I have no friends that have a fitbit.

[jsayers1]

Always looking for new challenges!!

[LaniH]

There should be a random feature where you are randomly put in challenges with people who aren't your friends.

[Mcore]

This would make things really interesting, I like it! Very good idea. Thank you for sharing!

[Atro7]

I'd like to put forward a idea where people with fitbits can challenge people all around the world. So instead of the usual friends challenge maybe a random opponent in all the same categories would be slit of fun and bring the Fitbit community together. Just imagine challenging someone for the work week challenge from the other side of the world ... Or maybe going into a tournament with 32 random people and battling it out to see who the last man or woman is standing in a knockout format battle ... Or even getting a team of 3 , 4 or 5 of your friends together and challenging a random team from around the world. It would add a interesting spin to the fun challenges we already have.

Just a thought

[Clubgroove2002]

Could you add a new challenge to the menu where instead of just challenging friends and family. You could square against other Fitbit users across the country and around the world for weekly, daily, or weekend challenges. 

[Clubgroove2002]

That would be great!!

Sent from my iPhone

[deschanell]

I got my fitbit as my colleague had been telling me how doing the challenges keeps her most motivated to do exeeciae and i thought that was a great idea as i am quite competitive so this would keep me on my toes. However, she wasn't very clear about how it works and i was disappointed to discover you can only do challenges with your friends that also have fitbit. I personally know only one other person that has a fitbit so can't actually benefit from this feature. I think it would be a great idea if fitbit introduced a way that you could set up challenges with anyone who has fitbit - so you could do it with random people as well. Might actually be very fun! 

[cynrock]

I used GPS on my phone to walk 1 mile.  However, my Fitbit only registered .78 miles.  Do I lengthen or shorten my stride, OR, can Fitbit calculate stride length? 

[FitBoot]

Upvoted this suggestion, although my feeling is that to "compete" or exchange fitness data in some way with people outside the FitBit users community is probably a third party venture, which is by the way a very doable service even today. FitBit provides API, so a third party "Competition" app could pull the data in the same way as all other third party integrations are already doing it (some to an extend...)

However, what actually attracted my attention in this suggestion, is the title "Challenges with people you don't know", which I see is something very much needed WITHIN (!!!) FitBit community! Thus, when I try to "Add Friends", the only options I have is my own personal contacts. Well, they just don't have FitBit, or have something else (...back to the original "deschanell's" suggestion).

Dear FitBit, why can't we have an option to connect with other FitBit (... at least) users? I guess, this probably stems from the whatever "privacy issues", FitBit is trying to have for users, but so what? Those who want "privacy" can just specify so. Those who want to "connect/challenge" with/other FitBit users, should then be allowed to do so as well. Such "challenges" can be made on the "accept/do not accept/cancell connection" basis...

This seems like a very logical feature for the sytem. Moreover, this feature will take absolutely minimal amount of work to get implemented, because FitBit already has this feature coded. All that is needed, is to expand the existing functionality by opening the option for people to be able to "connect" with people they don't know...

[TheMothHour]

That's such a great idea! I would like to add a suggestion to this: 

Instead of just using random users, this feature could suggest from a pool with similar weekly stats. So if I typically get 60k-70k a week, I will be paired with people who get around 60k-70k a week. 

[dbalge]

Just a suggestion but anyone with an Android or iPhone (5.5 or greater) can use the Fitbit app to track steps and participate in challenges. You don't need to purchase a Fitbit tracker. I started with Fitbit that way. Although, you would need to get your friends that you want to do challenges with to sign up for Fitbit and they would use the MobileTrack device ( cell phone). I've even used my cell phone to track steps when my Fitbit battery was dead or extremely low

[SteveNetero]

I think the mobiletrack is phone specific, not just OS specific.  Only certain phones are compatible with it.

[iSting]

I agree with @TheMothHour. The app should suggest friends with similar average weekly steps for challenges.

[DevinRobinson]

it could also have a listing of people nearby along with alike stats...

[Lueck767]

Great idea!

[otterb0t]

I'd love this. I have very few friends with fitbits, and I'd love to participate in a community without having to friend everyone just for a week challenge, then go back through and awkwardly delete them all again to keep my posts for just people I know.