Step-Challenge and Community Replacement for Fitbit Refugees Losing Friends, Groups, Direct Messages, and Leaderboards on May 12
Starting May 12, 2026, Google Health rips Direct Messages, Groups, the Community Feed, and the Friends leaderboard out of the old Fitbit app, with full account end-of-life on May 19 and data deletion on July 15. Fitbit refugees still want a friend-graph step competition with badges and adventures, not just another solo tracker tied to a single vendor's bracelet. The gap is a device-agnostic step-and-active-minutes social layer that imports legacy Fitbit friend lists and badge history before the cutoffs and runs across Pixel Watch, Garmin, Apple Health, Samsung Health, and phone-only step counts.
Don't try to be the next Strava. The real product is a 30-day migration concierge tightly scoped to May 12 through July 15... import their data via the existing Fitbit export, rebuild the friend graph from the contact list, then quietly become a normal social step app afterward. The window is the wedge.
landscape (3 existing solutions)
Step-challenge replacements exist but none of them treat the May-12/May-19/July-15 Google Health migration as the actual product, so nobody is doing 'export your Fitbit before it dies, plug your old friend list back together, keep your streaks.' That migration concierge layer is the wedge.