The Fitbit Community is a gathering place for real people who wish to exchange ideas, solutions, tips, techniques, and insight about the Fitbit products and services they love. By joining our Community, you agree to uphold these guidelines, so please take a moment to look them over.
Oh dear Fitbit, another calamitous decision. For me this was of the best features of the Fitbit website. On my 3rd Fitbit now and when it passes I suspect I'll now be looking elsewhere 😞
As others have stated, Community groups not only motivated users, but actually pushed potential customers towards fitbit. We had a work-based community, and I know at least 7 people purchases a fitbit just join the community. Bonding and challenging peers was a great team builder. Without this ability to form smaller, more intimate groups, I think many users will feel overwhelmed or disinterested in the current options. Now when it comes time to replace my fitness tracker, how is fitbit distinguishing themselves from the crowded market?
Bring back the Community Activity Groups. This is a feature I used everyday. The groups I belonged to are not available on your mobile platforms. You removed this feature without any warning and ended a useful feature and a place where people got valuable information. You clearly didn't consider people who do not have access to mobile apps or who have limited data plans. I checked out the mobile groups they are just filled with comments and lack the information that was available.
Bring them back immediately, and next time you want to make major changes to your platform ask your users first. Given that companies and others used this tracking feature I have a feeling this may result in future impacts to your bottom line.
I know for me that I will seriously consider other vendors when my tracker needs replacing and this is after loving fitbit for almost 5 years. I like doing business with companies that actually care about their customers. This sudden move and the initial responses I received from customer support seem to indicate the opposite.
The easiest fix to this problem is this. Quit using Fitbit. Vote with your wallet. That's what I intend on doing. Removing this feature used by many people with no warning is terrible customer service from a terrible company. There are many other fitness trackers out there, and I intend on switching to another one. This was a foolish move and I hope I'm not alone in choosing to quit using Fitbit.
It is bad enough that the activity groups were pulled without notice, but the groups operated without a way for members to readily communicate. That was fine up until the plug was pulled and the solution was stated to be, recreate the group under the phone app. I have no way to contact the other members of my group to tell them we created a "new" group.
This is where offering the capability to migrate the existing groups to the new platform comes into play. My existing group should either be automatically migrated to the new platform or provide the group a way to let everyone accept membership in the new, re-established group.
I think that the use of the term deprecated in regard to what was done to the Web based Activity groups is unjustified. In my experience with computers, deprecated implies that the function has been retired because a better mechanism has been created and the end result is a transition that is transparent to the end user. Losing all of the user data and user experience is hardly transparent.
The best way for me to engage with other Fitbit users in my local area was to join a community activity group. A number of my "Fitbit Friends" came from these groups. Has been great to learn other user from it, encourage and motivate one another.
This feature was very useful for in-house activities. The Data provided was very useful for encouraging competition and motivation to the group members.
The Community Activity Group provided me with the incentive to get out and walk during the cold winter mornings we are currently experiencing here in Auckland New Zealand. My determination to brave the cold fuelled by the determination to maintain or better my standing in the Leader board. Now with the leader board gone, my daily steps have considerably reduced. Please bring back the community activity groups.
1. No advance notice. At least the admins of closed groups should’ve gotten a heads up.
2. Why weren’t the features from the web closed groups completely transferred to the app? We can no longer see the running step count for the month. Now my work competition is ruined and that data is nowhere to be found. This is ridiculous and unacceptable.
3. The app enhancement was a long time coming, but did the web features have to be removed? Why can’t we have both?
4. Not allowing us to add users to the closed group without being friends first is a hassle and inconvenient.
Please fix fix this soon. I have no use for Fitbit if I can’t have the community engagement in the way that I’m used to. I suspect that there are MANY who are affected in the exact same way. Fitbit needs to follow basic technology communication methods to ensure that their user base is properly informed of web development enhancements and features being removed, I feel like Fitbit is taking the users for granted.
I doubt very much that they will reinstate the community forums, as by the posts from moderators I have seen recently they are just paying lip service to us. They assume we will just put up with it, and probably most will until their current tracker device dies. Then I expect people will think twice about paying hundreds in trackers, chargers, accessories etc to a company that ignores its base stakeholders. The assumption in recent years is that everyone has a smart phone so we can all access apps. That is not the case I and several people I know prefer the older style phones and use a PC or laptop for internet based stuff including Fitbit. The powers that be must be in the age group where it is more important to have 10,000+ people in your group to show your photos and voice your opinions rather a small group of people that you really get to know and through their support and encouragement keeps you motivated. Personally I have lost all interest and motivation in my goals as I do not have the connections with my Fitbit friends I once did. I have started an group on the fitbit app on a friends tablet but it is not the same and fewer and fewer are posting, it seems very disconnected,you can't seem to keep conversations going.
I used to love my Fitbit but now when people ask me about trackers I am telling them to look at other companies as I feel so let down by this organisation.
The groups were the main reason that I purchased another Fitbit when my original one broke. I know a lot of people who love the fact that they can go up against literally strangers every month without having the need to make them all into friends in order to do that. Please reinstate the groups, otherwise I can't really see any good reason to have another Fitbit in the future.
Yes, please put the web based activity boards up again. The leadership board kept my motivation up. It was the best feature about having a Fitbit. Bring it back!
I have been a proud owner of the original Flex since February 2014 - over 5 years. It is the longest I have ever stuck with anything health and fitness wise.
I made friends with people across the WORLD via the Fitbit Community boards. People that now know me better than my best friends ever will because I feel free to share more with them.
I have made improvements to my weight and health based on recommendations from people I don't know and am not friends with. I don't have their e-mails, addresses, real names but they made an impact on my life.
I am very disappointed with Fitbit.
You removed the Community boards which allowed us to search for and connect to others based on our personal interests, locales, age brackets, body weight or preparation for upcoming events (weddings, marathons, etc.) or any other personal parameters.
You did so mid-month with no advanced notice so we could be prepared for it by connecting in other ways with these same people.
You replaced it with a mobile app that is not as user friendly for groups or tracking.
You think everyone can/will use the mobile app when a large portion of your user base are not as connected to their phones or tablets as you believe whether due to physical ability, age or personal preference.
You respond to questions with scripted answers saying how superior the app is when it clearly is not.
The most powerful kind of advertisement is word of mouth, without this feature I have no reason to recommend Fitbit over any other brand. That being said I don't think I'm alone in this view; please consider restoring this functionality. The "Private Groups" don't have anywhere near the functionality of the community groups. If they did I wouldn't care much, as we could recreate the groups. My company has pretty much given up on using Fitbits for our monthly competitions in the last week since finding this out. Our boss used to buy us all new ones around Christmas each year; it won't be happening this year unless this is back in place.
I don't know what kind of backup software, or code changes your IT had done (I work at an MSP), but as someone who has watched people make mistakes and then realize it after, it's really easy to go back to the same day you removed it all.
I'm currently having issues logging in to my Fitbit app.
With the removal of Community Activity Groups on the web, I now have NO ACCESS to my group. The only way I can currently communicate to people I'm in challenges with (to let them know I'm having app problems) is to send a user a message via the web interface. Very clunky, and relies on just one person to see my message, instead of the whole group.
This is just the latest update to dilute and worsen the community aspect of the Fitbit service. Aside from selling us an activity tracker and maybe the "premium" service, the user community is what constitutes the lifeblood of Fitbit itself. Removing features makes things harder for your customers and cheapens the user experience. Don't continue to ruin things with "improvements' like this. It's what helped to kill Jawbone UP.
LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS. Bring back the Community Activity Groups.
I can't say anything that many other people haven't already said about how bad of a decision this is. I called the Fitbit help line and the two people I spoke to there were absolutely no help at all. They did seem to be fairly sick of getting calls about the groups being taken away. This whole thing seems like a terrible business decision.
Since the web-based activity groups from Fitbit.com have been removed. Is there a way or plans to show monthly results on the phone app community group as was able on the web based. We compete for work and are only able to see last 7 days of steps, does not work for us anymore. Also cannot see prior months steps/mileage, etc. The phone based app is very limited in functionality. Would like to see at least what we were provided on the web-based activity groups. Please consider adding these features.
Fitbit just take notice of the posts, most people use the groups as their inspiration to keep going, what a bad decision and one that could possibly be your downfall in a competitive marketplace
I miss the friends I had in two different groups and my Fitbit 1 is six years old. It's time for another. I assume that the groups were discontinued because it was just too expensive to keep them up and there were fewer conversations going on. At least that's the way it was in the groups where I was involved.
There are a few things we can do.
1. Complain - as we all have done.
2. Get another tracker from another company.
3. If you have or know a stock broker talk to them and see who follows Fitbit stock. Talk to those people aobut what's happening and why people will stop buying Fitbits.
Join us on the Community Forums!
Community Guidelines
Learn the Basics
Join the Community!
Not finding your answer on the Community Forums?
Go to the Help Site
Contact Support