Health Hive Version 3
Today I’m excited announce Health Hive Version 3 is coming soon. This brand new version of the app has been rebuilt from the ground up.
When Health Hive launched in 2022, it was in many was a concept app which I hoped might be useful to a few people. However, its usefulness depended on having enough users sign up and contribute their anonymous Health profiles to compare against. Thankfully the interest was clearly there, over 40,000 profiles later the app provides a lot of data to compare against.
Now that all this data is available I wanted to see how I could improve the app. The three core pillars of this update are Clarity, Validity and Security.
Clarity
Every chart in the app has been rewritten to be simpler from the start. New violin distribution charts right on the Dashboard gives users an instant summary of where they stand with their demographic. Complex data showing distributions broken down by demographic can now be analyzed at a glance. How Health metrics change with Age is clearer than before. Users can now see exactly what data points make up their trend values with new charts showing the past 30 days compared to the previous time period.
Validity
It’s crucial that all these new charts show accurate and valid data whilst still being accessible to as many levels of user as possible. Where possible, Health Hive now defaults to compare you against other profiles in your Demographic rather than just every profile. This makes comparisons more relevant as users are the same Biological Sex and Age range. Demographic distribution charts now show data proportionally, Hive metrics and global comparisons allow more transparency in the data with country selection and user threshold options.
Security
The first version of the app launched with an aim to offer user anonymity in as straight forward a method as possible. However, one key detail the app has always offered is allowing the user to delete their data should they wish. This presented a difficult challenge in the early days when the profiles were meant to be anonymous. What if the user got a new iPhone? Version 1 did offer solutions to this problem but it in itself opened potential security risks and ultimately the app needed a form of authentication. Enter Sign in with Apple. Now the app lets you essentially link your Health profile via a token to your Apple ID. The profile is still anonymous and now when the user changes device or reinstalls the app and wants to delete their profile, it’s still their profile to delete.
With those technical details aside lets briefly go through some new features.
What’s New
As soon as you launch the app you’ll notice a new refined navigation setup for the app. The Dashboard has a brand new look and feel. You can choose exactly what Health metrics you want to track and it’s easy to reorder or delete the ones you don’t want. Each Health metric offers a comparison against your demographic and has a new glanceable distribution violin chart.
Selecting a Health metric presents a new screen with four separate sections.
The first if your 30 day trend, this lets you see the Health data points that have contributed to your Health value for the metric and also see how it is trending versus the preceding 30 days.
Next is the Health By Age chart and put simply, this chart highlights the difference Age makes to all the Health metrics you can track. It also offers a comparison between Men and Women.
Next is the filter distribution chart, this lets you compare your Health value against any demographic selection you like.
Finally there’s the demographic distribution chart, break out data sets by Age, Biological Sex and more.
The Hive section of the app offers much improved versions of the original Hive metrics and Global Boards.
The first section really lets you understand exactly what countries and demographic make up data in the Hive.
The new Global Boards offer comparison through various Health types and new threshold options allow you to improve data precision.
This isn’t all that’s new. Health Hive now support iPad and there’s one other substantial change.
Introducing Health Hive Premium
Health Hive Plus has become Health Hive Premium. With this release the app will be transitioning to a subscription model for its Premium features. I’ve made this change because the app has ongoing servicing costs associated with hosting the Hive data safely and securely. It is also important for the app to offer as low barriers as possible to users getting full use of all its features. As such there’s a monthly option which costs a fraction of the original Health Hive Plus, and there’s even a 7 day trial. For users wishing to save, the Annual plan offers around a 50% saving from the monthly Premium plan.
A Massive Thank you
For users who’ve already purchased Health Hive Plus - Your support of the app in its early stages means the world. I wouldn’t be able to offer this update and future ones without you. As such I’m committing to offering free Health Hive Premium for the rest of 2024 to previous Health Hive Plus users. I hope existing users will be delighted with this major update to the app and will stay with us as we deliver new features in the future.
Public testing is already underway for the new version of the app. If you’re interested in joining the program please email me via Simon@HelixApps.co.uk
Look out for Version 3 launching soon!