Fitbit Is Removing Many Community-Focused Features (xda-developers.com) 16
Google-owned Fitbit is removing several community-focused features on March 27, including Challenges and open groups. Christine Persaud writes via XDA Developers reports: For me, challenges were one of Fitbit's main strengths. You could strap a fitness tracker or smartwatch to your wrist, set up an account, and chances are at least a handful of your contacts were also Fitbit users. Then, you could add them as friends to compete and compare your progress. This seems like an insignificant "nice to have" feature, but the motivation it provides is precisely the aim of wearing a fitness tracker in the first place. And without open groups, you wouldn't have the opportunity to get to know like-minded users from around the world.
This decision eliminates one of the platform's best features: a sense of community. Reportedly, more than 31 million people use Fitbit at least once a week. That's a staggering number and a group of customers ripe for creating and maintaining an active community. At a time when the market is flooded with competing fitness tracker and smartwatch brands, it has become increasingly difficult to stand out. According to Statista, Fitbit has been leading the wearables space since 2014, accounting for almost half the worldwide market share at 45%. The company's solid grasp on the market (though it now faces stiff competition from the likes of Apple, Garmin, and others) is partly because of the unique Challenges and groups. While other companies, like Apple, have a version of Challenges, they're not as robust as what Fitbit supports. "Nonetheless, for anyone new to the market looking for a fitness tracker or smartwatch that can do it all and connect them to a wealth of information and a community of people, this news makes Fitbit a less appealing platform to consider," adds Persaud. "All we can do is hope for bigger and better things to come with Google integration in the future."
This decision eliminates one of the platform's best features: a sense of community. Reportedly, more than 31 million people use Fitbit at least once a week. That's a staggering number and a group of customers ripe for creating and maintaining an active community. At a time when the market is flooded with competing fitness tracker and smartwatch brands, it has become increasingly difficult to stand out. According to Statista, Fitbit has been leading the wearables space since 2014, accounting for almost half the worldwide market share at 45%. The company's solid grasp on the market (though it now faces stiff competition from the likes of Apple, Garmin, and others) is partly because of the unique Challenges and groups. While other companies, like Apple, have a version of Challenges, they're not as robust as what Fitbit supports. "Nonetheless, for anyone new to the market looking for a fitness tracker or smartwatch that can do it all and connect them to a wealth of information and a community of people, this news makes Fitbit a less appealing platform to consider," adds Persaud. "All we can do is hope for bigger and better things to come with Google integration in the future."
Remember mp3 player, camera (Score:2)
And we sometimes are limited to devices functionality. But few carry three devices to call, listen, and picture. At some point the watch will be a phone and the entire face a lens for a camera. And the kludge of fitness will be the afterthought.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh man, stupid "social" features are the worst.
My cats GPS tracker (Useful thing to have if you have a little roamer, but can be anxiety inducing once you realise your moggy likes crossing main roads, not an activity associated with long cat lives) has these stupid "social" features that let you know how its activity compares with other local cats.
If the local council brings in its cat curfew (something I actually support, cats wanna roam, but its bad for wildlife and its bad for cats) its going to be a pri
Contract law and morons (Score:1, Troll)
Google is welcome to do whatever they like, except that if they sold me a product (they did, it's a FitBit Charge 4) and told me it would have some functionality I was counting on (they did, and it does) and now want to remove that then we'll just end up having someone adjudicate this dispute.
I'm not looking forward to litigation against sucn an immoral and unethical company, and their slogan "do no evil" really was retired in actual usage years ago, but an agreement between the parties is a valid binding c
Re: (Score:2)
They contributed the truth. We're this to go class action, the pay would be jack shit just like the poster laid out. These companies don't believe they owe their users fuck all and they are right. No one is going to hold them to what they advertise and you know it. Mr/Mrs. Anonymous Coward.
Re: (Score:2)
And yes, I know I put a ' into were but /. hasn't improved since the late 90s so no edit. /shrug
Google doesn't really grok "community" (Score:3)
They're mostly marketers and engineers... neither group is really known for relating well with other people.
Re: (Score:2)
They're mostly marketers and engineers... neither group is really known for relating well with other people.
At least the engineers are in charge of products, and the marketers are only in charge of canceling them. Otherwise they would reinvent Salesforce.
Is it a problem? (Score:2)
These devices have been made so interoperable that there are many other companies providing exactly this kind of service. It stands to reason that you wouldn't necessary compete with them and I actually like the idea that multiple companies focus on the hardware and leave it to someone else to build the community gamification for it.
Now if Google was say dropping support for Fitbit's Strava export function or dropped support for Garmin Connect then it would be a problem.
Re:Is it a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a problem for all the people currently using this functionality. They bought the product, and used its features, and here comes Google turning features off at its own whim. Doubtless, Google ran the numbers, and this feature was below the red line on the spreadsheet, so it's being cut. That's pretty crappy for anyone using it :-(
FWIW, it feels to me like Fitbit used to be a "fun" thing, that helped you move a bit more, get fitter and sleep better. Since Google took it over, it still broadly does those things, but the fun has been removed. It's now just a "fitness tracker" and nothing more, and likely its "brand cool" has waned considerably too. The day they remove the smiley moon from the app's sleep score page will be the day my kids think it's turned rubbish. I can't think of a woke reason why a smiley moon would be bad, but I'm sure G can find it :-(
I rather like the fitbit - the hardware is quite nice, it works quite well, it's cheap and doesn't require you link up to a bajillion alerts and notifications that some vendor thinks will "drive engagement". In that sense then, it does what you want. I just hope Google don't take all the non-functional goodness out of it.
Useless feature (Score:1)
You had one job (Score:2)
A lack of community features isn't what stopped me from using my Fitbit. It's because the damn thing sucks as a watch.
My primary requirement for a watch is to tell the time. If I have to tap it twice to see the time, that's unhelpful. Finding it stuck on the ECG screen and having to wait for that to time out or having to scroll through 5 screens to see the goddamn time is downright infuriating. The final insult is that the "flip to turn on" function which works perhaps one time in twenty during the day
It was a good feature. (Score:1)
It sucks it's going away. Hopefully they bring something useful to the table. If not this is my last Fitbit.