Before 2019’s Google acquisition (and closure in 2021), Fitbit frequently touted its community and social features as a major strength. Its challenges — competitions between Fitbit users — have been part of Fitbit’s platform for over 10 years and copied by nearly every other smartwatch and fitness-tracking platform. Adventures were introduced later as a type of immersive challenge, where users could take virtual tours of places like Yosemite National Park while hitting step goals. Meanwhile, open groups are exactly as they sound: groups where anyone can join around a common interest. Many have several hundred thousand or even millions of members.

(paragraph cited from https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/17/23603101/fitbit-google-challenges-adventures-community)

The only reason many of us are still using FitBit is precisely because of the features the company is intending to remove. Challenges and Adventures made the 2020 Pandemic bearable, social, and created a community of connection and support during a time where we couldn’t have it in person. It got us off of the couch. It helped us connect to our friends, peers, and even those around the world — who we’d have never met — for motivation and encouragement. It has encouraged (and kept!) many of us to stay active when we otherwise wouldn’t be interested.

It is evident from the Fitbit Community Forums that these features are the main reason we have remained loyal FitBit users, and why many of us even get our daily exercise. The comments are all strikingly similar: “I have a community here,” “I’ve made friends from around the world who do weekly challenges with me, and I don’t want to lose that,” “The challenges are the only reason I use a Fitbit,” and “This is my only motivation to keep moving and taking steps.” This sentiment of wanting to continue with that motivation and community support is especially relevant for those trying to stay active while avoiding the switch to an Apple Watch or other step counter/fitness tracker. We don’t want to move our business to a new platform, we love our Fitbit challenges and the community we have built together. That might be why the message of Fitbit users from coast to coast and from nation to nation is clear: “When the Challenges go, so do I.”

FitBit, please, we are asking that you keep this supportive community you’ve helped create alive by keeping the Challenge and Adventure features you want to retire. They are such an important part of our fitness/exercise/health journeys. We don’t want to switch to the Apple Watch or other fitness trackers, but we’ll have to if we no longer have access to the app we love. Even if you need to cut the workload investment and cannot commute to updating or changing the existing challenges, loyal users like us enjoy them just the way they are. Please do not collapse this community and take away many our motivations for staying active, getting exercise and pushing ourselves to do more than we normally would, especially during a time where physical activity is so crucial to our collective health.

Please sign this petition to ask FitBit to keep the Challenge and Adventure features that will disappear on March 27, 2023. We only have a little more than a month left — once FitBit deletes these features, they won’t want to put in the work of reinstating them!

Picture credit: https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Anatolir