Open groups, as opposed to closed groups, enable anybody in the community to join by submitting a request. Users may locate them by navigating to Groups in the app’s Community page and then looking for ones that seem like a good fit. As the pandemic lockdowns began, people asked Fitbit to make open groups simpler to form — apparently, groups created via the app are immediately turned private — and the Fitbit staff indicated they’d explore expanding the feature. Yet, it seems that they elected to eliminate all open groups instead.
