Smart Devices. They have grown so much from when they first started to come out. The normal smart devices, besides the phones themselves, that the average person is aware of range from smart home speakers, to smart lights and other items in that range of products. While all these products are great, these products have also gone to other forms of niche products like the one that I will talk about here, the smart water bottle.

This smart water bottle is created by a company called Hidrate and I have been using them since 2018. This company makes a line of water bottles in all different shapes and sizes and what the water bottle aims to do is automatically track your water usage throughout the day. There is an application that pairs to your smartphone and there you can see how much water you have drank in that day so far. There is even a fun social aspect of it that you can add your friends and see if you are drinking enough!

I have purchased two different versions of this water bottle and it has helped me in my situation. The disclaimer here is that 1) this is not medical advice in any way shape or form and 2) this isn't the easy fix solution if you are trying to get healthy.

I originally purchased the HidrateSpark 2.0 in 2018 and used that up until it ended up breaking in 2021. That version was a plastic version and it lasted me a long time and was very durable, but unfortunately, I dropped it down a flight of stairs and that was the end of that. The current version that I am utilizing is the 21 Oz HidrateSpark Pro and I have been loving it since I started using it. It comes in a nice steel frame and has a rechargeable battery that lasts me about a week or so on a charge. This product has a great build quality

So what this water bottle does is that it tracks the water usage throughout the day and lets you know what your ideal water amount of water that you should consume in a day is. When you are creating your account, it asks you for various amounts of information about yourself like your height/weight. With that information and the weather of the current location that you are in, it calculates how much water you should be consuming on that given day and sets that as your goal for the day. Periodically throughout the day, your water bottle will light up and glow if you are not on pace to finish enough water for the day. You can also receive a push notification on your device with some sayings to try and entice you to keep drinking so more water.

I found the tracking results accurate and on par with the amount of water that I consumed. While yes, it isn't drinking the water for me and I still need to have the desire to drink the water, this has kind of done the same thing to me that the Apple Watch/Fitbit has done for me and others. It has gamified the act of being healthy and many days I have caught myself wanting to complete the ring and drink enough water on that day. This is one of those things that are super niche because it is water, but for the right person (aka me) it can help them increase their water intake and try to get themselves to a healthier lifestyle.

So while I am saying all this good stuff about the application, nothing can be perfect right? There are some things about this that I would like to change on this device. For starters, the way it recharges. It uses this proprietary puck on the bottom of the bottle that you remove when you are trying to charge it. This might be a personal problem, but I twist my cup against the desk a lot and I will every so often unhook the puck from the bottle turning it off. I wish it had something that locked it in so I couldn't do that.

I also do not like that the puck has a proprietary charger. I wish it just used USB-C instead of this magnetic coil. Granted this coil is only $8, but it is the principle of the matter.

Lastly, it takes some getting used to, but the way the bottle knows how much water you drink is when you place it on the table, it measures how much water is in the cup and figures it out then. Because of this, there is this thing where you have to remember to constantly place the water bottle down which doesn't sound like a problem, but I have been in situations where I had to actively think about this situation to make sure that it is measuring the water. For example, when you are walking around all day and don't necessarily place the bottle down, you are going to wait to eventually place it down before you put more water in it because without doing that, it won't know that you refilled the water bottle. It is just another thing for you to think about that every time water is removed or added, you need to place it down so that it can measure the water contents of the bottle before being consumed. None of these things for me were dealbreakers, but there were things that I thought were important to mention.

Now, would I recommend this smart water bottle? Yes, I would recommend it. While it might not be the solution for everyone, for me it has worked wonders. It has gotten me to continue to drink and make sure that I am consuming enough water most days. It is pretty surprising to me that it has had this effect on me, but I am a big fan of this solution. If you are someone that things like this can get you to start taking care of your health more seriously, I would recommend you in trying this.