This thread is where we’ll share quick notes about backend (or “cloud”) updates that happen outside of normal app releases. These updates don’t require a new download, but they can still improve how games run, data syncs, or scores update behind the scenes.
We won’t post every small tweak or internal improvement here, just the updates that players might notice or benefit from in some way.
We’ve rolled out a couple of backend fixes today that should make things feel a bit smoother across the board.
Fixed several bugs that were causing player positions in Bingo games to display incorrectly. Standings should now be accurate and consistent.
Fixed an issue where games of all types could briefly disappear from your list immediately after their end date before reappearing later. Finished games now stay visible as expected until they naturally move off the list.
The post-game sync reminder notification was being sent for Bingo games which was incorrect. Bingo games require flipping tiles before the game ends. Step games are the only games that will send sync reminders going forward.
These updates are already live and don’t require an app update. Thanks to everyone who reported these quirks, they helped us track them down quickly.
Today’s update expands the pool of possible board patterns used when creating new Bingo games.
This means more variety, more surprises, and a fresh feel each time you play.
Every game now has a better chance of standing out with its own unique layout.
Enjoy exploring the new combinations in your next match!
Bingo games have always worked by giving each player their own activity targets. Fitbit did this from the beginning to make the challenge fun with friends but still fair. You were competing against your own patterns, not the one person in the group who runs triathlons for fun. When we started building StepSmash, that idea became a core part of how we think about every game we design. Even though our first goal was bringing back Get Fit Bingo, we have always planned to build more challenges that follow the same graded-on-a-curve approach.
Today we are shipping an update to how we calculate your baseline activity for steps, distance, and active minutes. Since launch we have had a number of people mention that their Bingo difficulty felt inconsistent, and after digging into the existing algorithm we found a few issues that were causing those mismatches.
For most folks, tile costs will not shift too much. A small number of accounts will see noticeable changes. Some will drop quite a bit, and some will go up, depending on how the old logic was interpreting their last week of activity.
Overall these changes should better reflect each person’s actual activity level and help keep the playing field level for everyone.
We shipped a small update today that improves how challenges are ordered on your home screen.
Previously, challenges were sorted by completion status and then by creation date. With this update, challenges are still shown as a single list, but the ordering has been improved:
This should make it easier to focus on what’s active now and see what’s coming up next. Let us know what you think!
Today we shipped a small update that resolves some rare sync issues that were impacting a small number of Apple Health and Garmin users. The affected users would have seen problems where their step counts would not sync correctly, or not at all.
We shipped a small fix today for step challenges. In some cases, people were seeing their step count show up as 0 when creating or joining a challenge, and it would not update to the correct value until their fitness tracker synced with StepSmash.
Starting today, your step count should show the correct value right away when you create or join a step challenge.
This issue is related to another reported issue where some folks are seeing multiple competitors on the leaderboard listed as You incorrectly. That client-side patch to fix that will be out in the next release.
We shipped another fix today to address some additional Samsung Health sync issues.
This update includes some server-side changes to help StepSmash better catch up on missing Samsung Health data and improve how that data is saved going forward.
The changes below only apply to new Smash Bingo games. Your board’s tiles are created when you accept the invite to a game and they don’t change after that. Going forward tile difficulty will be determined by the algorithm update defined below.
We shipped a small change today to how bingo tiles are sized based on your recent activity.
Because tile goals are based on your previous 7 days of activity, getting more active can make your next board harder. That’s intentional to a point, since it helps keep the game motivating. But after a while, completing boards regularly could make the next board feel harder than it should.
Today’s update gently adjusts the bingo difficulty algorithm so regular play does not cause tile goals to creep upward as quickly. Your tiles can still become more difficult if you start moving a lot more than before, but simply doing enough to complete your board should no longer make your next board much harder.