A massively popular fitness app, founded and championed by Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, has reportedly been plagued by weeks of service disruptions – less than two months after a sacked engineer warned of precisely that.
An estimated 22 Australians working for Centr Fitness were abruptly locked out of their computers in mid-July after learning their roles were made redundant.
Hemsworth launched the fitness app in 2019 and sold it in March last year, but is still listed as the founder on the company’s website and is featured in the workouts and promos.
Two workers told news.com.au that the mass job cuts were sealed in an email from the company’s American CEO, Andrew Sugerman.
At the time, one engineer who was let go said they held concerns for the operation of the app at the time.
“It remains a mystery to the engineering team as to how they will be able to take over with no handover,” they said.
“There are 30-plus interconnected systems that keep the app running.
“It’s likely they will rebuild or use a cookie cutter solution, but the cutover will be a very complex operation if they are to minimise the impact to our reasonably large user base.”
According to a Centr spokesperson, access across all platforms has been restored after “intermittent access issues over the past couple of weeks”.
According to social media posts from the Centr team to users on a Facebook private group of almost 60,000 users and online reviews, the connectivity issues plagued the app for almost three weeks.
“Shortly after the firings, the Centr app has experienced many outages, and the users are unhappy, to say the least,” one subscriber, who otherwise swears by the app, told news.com.au.
“Many in the community are complaining about the lack of transparency and how bad Customer support has been.
“The members of the Facebook community are still helping each other out by sending screenshots to fellow members affected by the outage.
“Centr has personally offered me a free month on my next subscription. Personally, I find this odd. They are only willing to do a free month if I sign up again.
“Why would I want to sign up for a service that isn’t working.
“The community is furious.”
Another member of the private Facebook for Centr users estimated issues had been going on “in some regions for several weeks” but have worsened in recent days.
“It came to a head (on August 27) when all regions reported it was broken,” they told news.com.au
In recent weeks, reviews citing the same connectivity issues for Centr on platforms like TrustPilot and the Google Play Store have flooded in reaffirming the mass outrage.
Most share a theme of being unable to log in, or being randomly signed out of accounts with the flag “Sorry, we dropped the dumbbell – Please try again shortly” as well as limited communication from the company.
A recent post in the private Facebook group from the Centr Team, seen by news.com.au, offered little explanation.
“Our team is working around the clock to get Centr’s connection back up and running,” it said.
“We are devastated that this issue has caused disruption in your daily routine and know no amount of words can ease the frustration you are feeling right now.
“We are committed to getting this fixed and are immensely grateful for your continued feedback, support, and patience.”
A spokesperson told news.com.au on Tuesday all issues had been resolved, confirming customers impacted would credited a month.
“CENTR has experienced intermittent access issues over the past couple of weeks that have impacted some CENTR customers,” they said.
“As of Monday, August 28 (Pacific Daylight Time), these issues have been resolved and CENTR customers now have access across all platforms.
“We understand the frustration this has caused some of CENTR’s customers and have offered a one-month credit to those whose app access was temporarily unavailable.”
The subscriber confirmed it appeared users had access again as of late Tuesday morning (AEDT).
“Considering this started roughly 18-19 days ago and affected users worldwide, who can say if it’s totally under control,” they added.
Centr is a $29.99 a month online health and wellbeing platform, including workouts, recipes and meditations from experts, and tailored meal recipes.
The app, launched by Hemsworth, has developed a broad and committed subscriber base over its four years of operation.
The Thor star, whose image still “inspires” the company’s operations, was said to have netted $267 million when Centr was acquired by HighPost Capital in 2022.
