Higi Files for IPO: Reinventing Health Data Engagement Beyond Wearables

By Gu Beini

In January 2016, Healthspot declared bankruptcy and liquidation of its walk-in telemedicine kiosks. (See:Why Did the Telehealth Disruptor from CES Three Years Ago Go Bankrupt?) People began to question the commercial value of such products, yet in that same month, news broke that higi, another startup founded in 2012 that also operates medical kiosks, had secured a substantial $40 million in financing. In fact, higi’s business model and positioning bear no resemblance to those of HealthSpot, which focused on telemedicine diagnostics. higi is positioned more toward general public health, offering registered users free measurements of only a few routine indicators, including weight, blood pressure, BMI, and pulse.

Can You Retain Users by Just Standing There Idly?

Higi’s medical kiosks do not appear to be highly sophisticated, offering only a few of the most routine measurements. The entire process is self-service, requiring no healthcare professionals and providing no remote connectivity to physicians. Perhaps precisely because its capabilities seemed unremarkable, Higi maintained a low profile prior to this funding round, attracting little media coverage and even failing to disclose news of its previous three financing rounds. However, by the time we began to focus on Higi, it had already installed nearly 10,000 units and accumulated 30 million registered users.

  
Figure: Open-style higi Medical Kiosk

It’s hard for such devices to sustain people’s long-term interest, isn’t it? Indeed. If that were all, Higi would quickly become invisible to users, even if its kiosks were ubiquitous. Yet Higi claims it has achieved an average of one million user interactions per week. How does Higi maintain customer stickiness?

From its inception, Higi recognized that user stickiness was a key factor. To address this proactively, Higi implemented a carefully designed gamified incentive mechanism, even acquiring Earndit, a small team specializing in the development of health incentive systems. This gamified incentive system is primarily built on a user registration basis. In other words, while using Higi is free, registration is required. Once registered, all digital behaviors generated through Higi are recorded. Higi collects, stores, and analyzes this data. Beyond designing user-friendly interfaces to display and analyze health data for users, this process also integrates them into a broader health community. User behavioral data is converted into points based on specific incentive patterns. Users can set goals, strive to achieve them, and receive recognition. Higi offers tangible rewards to encourage users to maintain focus on their personal health and continue using the platform—each check-in earns corresponding points. The rewards provided by Higi typically include vouchers for fitness centers, weight-loss meal plans, fitness equipment, and health supplements, among other products or services directly related to health.

Figure. The application interface of higi reflects point-based rewards

Wearables Are Too Hot; It’s Better to Forge a New Path

We are no strangers to the use of gamified incentives in areas related to health behaviors. Fitness, weight loss, and body-shaping apps, along with wearable devices such as smart bands, often face challenges with user retention. To address this, they have more or less adopted gamification mechanisms to maintain user engagement. In the realm of public health data, wearables combined with certain popular apps have already been deeply explored. What new strategies can be devised to open up fresh opportunities within the existing data ecosystem? Let us revisit the foundational thinking behind the establishment of higi.

First, the adoption of wearable devices is far from universal, with a substantial portion of the population yet to purchase such devices. Currently, this group significantly outnumbers those who own wearables. Does this imply that these individuals lack health and fitness needs? Clearly, they do have such needs.

Second, why do individuals with health and fitness needs who do not use wearable devices opt against using smartwatches or wristbands? There are merely a few reasons:
1. Distrust, as they are perceived to be inaccurate; indeed, constrained by their form factor, many types of wearable devices are unable to provide precise measurements.
2. Price, after all, represents an investment; if the device proves unsatisfactory, the money will be wasted. This is particularly relevant for wearable devices capable of measuring blood pressure and heart rate, which often carry a higher price tag.
3. Wearability burden: Many people are not accustomed to wearing wristbands or watches and perceive them as a burden.

Third, is there a new solution that can address the unmet needs of wearable devices and resolve the three aforementioned pain points? higi offers such a new option. As an integrated health metric measurement device, higi employs traditional measurement methods, thereby ensuring accuracy. For instance, devices like automatic electronic blood pressure monitors are widely used in many hospitals. higi is free to use, eliminating concerns about return on investment and removing barriers for users. Although higi does not support dynamic, continuous monitoring, it is designed for maximum accessibility, allowing users to take occasional measurements at public places they frequently pass by.

Figure: Comparison of the Potential User Base for higi Health Kiosks and Health Wearable Devices

From a product design perspective, Higi features a more streamlined structure and lacks the privacy of typical walk-in medical kiosks, which aligns with its focus on measuring basic health metrics. Consequently, it occupies less space, incurs lower equipment costs, and offers greater flexibility in selecting partner locations. The Higi kiosk operates entirely via self-service, is simple and user-friendly, and requires no assistance from healthcare professionals, thereby allowing for more versatile deployment scenarios. It is reported that 75% of Americans can find a Higi kiosk within a five-mile radius. These units are primarily installed in retail settings such as chain pharmacies and grocery stores. Notably, Higi kiosks are present in over 4,000 Rite Aid stores.

Figure higi’s Network Distribution in the United States

Open Platform, Become a Value-Added Partner

In addition to viewing personal data on Higi devices, Higi provides a corresponding mobile app and an online portal for users to log in at any time. Rather than operating within a closed ecosystem, Higi positions itself as a complementary partner, seeking collaborations with various health data tracking apps and wearable devices. Higi claims to have achieved data synchronization with more than 50 health and fitness hardware devices and applications, including mainstream brands such as Fitbit, Nike+, iHealth, Garmin, Jawbone Up, and Misfit. Beyond tracking data measured directly on Higi devices, the platform leverages API integrations with multiple third-party applications to capture data beyond its own hardware capabilities, incorporating this information into its incentive system.

Higi successfully entered the health data market by addressing the needs of underserved populations, and began to capture a share of the market’s data value through open integration. Rather than merely encouraging individuals to track their health metrics, Higi has designed a system that incentivizes users to check in while simultaneously surrendering their personal data.


Higi has positioned itself as a new gateway for health data acquisition, while also serving as a data integration platform and an engine for incentivizing consumer and patient behaviors. The combination of these roles creates a coherent logic for value monetization, establishing Higi as a multi-faceted value partner within the health industry.



Healthcare providers such as hospitals, payers such as insurance companies, and fitness centers can leverage Higi for marketing campaigns to acquire and segment users, while employing Higi’s consumer/patient incentive mechanisms to enhance engagement effectiveness. Higi also collaborates with other digital health software providers by integrating their functionalities to help drive user behavior. Higi aims to serve as a platform that integrates diverse stakeholders within the health industry ecosystem.

Will Higi Health Kiosks Eventually Disappear?

Although Higi health kiosks currently enjoy decent usage, they are ultimately destined to disappear in the long run. By then, wearable technology will have undergone qualitative improvements, becoming more affordable and accessible to all, while offering greater accuracy and reliability—even to the point of being unobtrusive, such as through embedded chips. Vital sign monitoring will become a default, real-time feature. In such a scenario, there would no longer be any need to check in at Higi health kiosks, as individuals would remain continuously connected.

However, while Higi may fade away as a hardware device, it can endure as an open platform. Once Higi establishes a sufficiently large, stable ecosystem with strong inertia, its app and the multi-party incentive mechanisms behind it are likely to become increasingly sticky. A device that appears to lack a strong sense of futurism has nonetheless made astute use of the present, cleverly boarding the train to the future.