Fitbit Reportedly Axes Some of Its Popular Social Features

Fitbit reportedly axes some of its popular social features. Social features such as Challenges, open Groups, and Adventures have now been shut down by the company.

Fitbit Reportedly Axes Some of Its Popular Social Features

Fitbit Reportedly Axes Some of Its Popular Social Features

Monday was the last owners of Fitbit could utilize a trio of the more popular social features of the fitness tracker. The wearable maker reportedly shut down fitness gamification features such as Fitbit Challenges and Adventures, as well as its Open Group social feature.

When Fitbit made the announcement of the planned sunsetting of the legacy features back in February, the Google-owned firm said that the features had “limited use” and was being removed in a bid to enhance and streamline the app.

What You Need To Know About the Axed Features

The Adventures mode as you should know was an incentivized, gamified single-user challenge and was added back in 2016 in which daily steps were layered onto real-life trail maps from Yosemite National Park, thus allowing users to track their virtual progress as they walked around. The Challenges feature on the other hand allowed users to share their step counts in order to motivate greater activity among friends and other users.

The removal of the features simply means that earned trophies on the service also have been deleted.

While Open Groups on the other hand which is a feature that allowed anyone to request to join a group is no longer available on the service, Fitbit said that users can still create closed groups or easily connect with other users on its Health & Wellness forums.

Google’s $2.1 Billion Deal for Fitbit

Google’s $2.1 billion deal for Fitbit was announced back in late 2019 and at first, faced scrutiny from European Union officials over privacy reasons relating to the health data Fitbit collects and how Google could utilize it. The acquisition however was completed in 2021 after Google was made to promise not to use health data for targeted ads.

MORE RELATED POSTS

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here