Jennifer Hong
4 smart bottles go head to head
We all know we’re supposed to drink plenty of water.
And if you’re one of the lucky ones who loves water, great!But a lot of people, myself included, will take the migraines and afternoon slump over exerting ourselves to drink the recommended 8 cups per day. Dr. Barbara Levine, director of the Nutrition Information Center at NYU-Cornell Medical Center, has called America a “dehydrated nation.” And I get it. I mean, water is not a particularly inspired beverage. It’s hard to stay motivated to drink it all day, every day, forever.
I’ve tried different ways to stay hydrated, like adding flavor packets to my water and pre-filling bottles the night before, but every effort lasts a few days at best and then fizzles out.I was curious to see if a smart water bottle would be any different.
While I’m low-tech and always skeptical of new trends, I figured: if there are teams out there whose full-time work it is to develop a bottle with this ONE goal in mind, there’s possibly something to them.I tried 4 different smart water bottles:
I approached with caution, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised.The smart technology proved to be more helpful than any of the standard hydration tips I’ve tried so far.
So now the question is — which smart water bottle is best? I’m going to break down my experiences with these 4 seemingly similar bottles and then reveal my top pick at the end.
Contender 1: Water.io
The bottle itself is insulated stainless steel, so it kept my water cold. It’s on the smaller side, 17oz, so it was conveniently lightweight, but I also had to refill it several times throughout the day. Likewise, the narrow opening is great for drinking but makes it a bit harder to clean and fill. It took me a few days to learn to stop filling before spilling it all over the counter!
I found the drink reminders the most effective out of all the contenders. The bottle lit up and vibrated whenever it was time to take a drink.
The vibration added a multi-sensory element — light, sound, and touch — which I found more helpful than light alone (in keeping with a 2023 study that suggested multi-sensory hydration nudges can be more effective than a single-sensory nudge).It was also nice not to be inundated with phone notifications.
I especially loved the rainbow party when I hit my daily goal!
But my favorite feature of all was that you could check your drinking status at any point by tilting your bottle sideways. If you were on track, it would turn green. If not, orange. Being competitive, this invariably motivated me to drink until I got it to turn green.
I definitely drank the most with this bottle.
Contender 2: HidrateSpark Pro
This bottle and I got off to a rocky start when I had to fiddle around to remove the sensor to charge it prior to use. It was designed in a way that made it hard to hold and twist. On the plus side, I loved the insulation which kept my water cold all day, and the wide opening made it very easy to clean. The built-in straw would also be a plus if you like them.The app experience was mostly smooth except for 2 setup frustrations:
- I had trouble initially calibrating the bottle. I kept getting an error message even though I was doing everything right. Eventually it worked on attempt #5.
- I had to scroll back manually, month by month, for over a decade until I reached my date of birth!
Beyond those setup glitches, the app was user-friendly and helpful. I liked the way your daily goal appeared as a circle, and there was a marker that moved as time passed.
The drink reminders came through my phone, which I didn’t love. Cutesy poems, quotes, and questions like, “Feeling the spark of thirst yet?” just didn’t motivate me.If I wasn’t by my phone, I missed the nudges, and if I was, I mostly found myself ignoring them.I did like that the bottle “talked” to me by turning blue when I filled it up and fuchsia after I took a drink. The only problem was that there was a long delay between the action and the glow — so much so that it took me a while to realize they were connected at all.Overall, the HidrateSpark Pro was a more-than-decent contender.
Contender 3: Gatorade Smart Gx
This bottle had the same familiar design as the classic Gatorade sports bottles I see everywhere. Same design, but with a smart cap.
The initial charge and app download experience were really straightforward. The app was sleek and I liked that it was highly customizable, from the hydration goal, 32 to 300 oz, to the color you want to see when your bottle lights up.
Drink reminders were bottle-based in the form of flashing lights on the cap. I could customize how frequently I wanted to be reminded, from every 15 minutes to hourly. I found the lights bold enough to keep me on track without being obtrusive, as long as I was by my bottle.
I also found it exciting to watch the light display gradually fill up towards the target goal as I drank throughout the day.
The bottle itself is fairly large, 32 oz, and durable. You’d have to work hard to break it or cause it to leak, which makes sense for athletes (their primary audience).It conveniently fits into most car and bike cup holders, and I enjoyed the rubber textured grip. This was also the only contender that was a squeeze bottle. Again, great for athletes.
Two drawbacks with the bottle itself:
- Lack of insulation meant water didn’t stay cold
- Slow air intake after drinking caused for a disjointed drinking experience
It’s also worth mentioning that the GX app is only available for iOS. So if you’re not Apple-based, you might want to keep scrolling.
Contender 4: WaterDrop
I was excited about this one because in addition to all the standard features of a smart bottle, the LUCY cap also purifies water using UV-C light technology — an effective water sterilizer.
I’m not sure it can take water from swampy to safe, but it does claim to deactivate “up to 100% of potential germs in drinking water.”
This was also the only contender that used a standard USB-C cable and didn’t require a custom cord to charge.
The app is smooth and intuitive. It’s easy to customize and find what you need.
You can even use points you’ve accrued towards free accessories.
(A word of caution: the app is available in many countries, but not all. So I’d advise double checking before committing.)
The WaterDrop drink reminders come both through your phone and in the form of flashing lights on the cap. Since I don’t find app reminders helpful, and the lights were so subtle that I often missed them, I did not find myself drinking more with this bottle.
Like contender 1, the bottle’s opening is on the narrower side which is both good to drink from and harder to clean and fill. The cap does screw onto most WaterDrop bottles, so you have a variety of materials and design to choose from, but the opening will always be narrow to fit the LUCY cap.All in all, this was an excellent final contender.
At-a-glance roundup
Although I approached with skepticism, I’d say my smart water bottle experiment was a raving success!
The smart technology did in fact increase my hydration in a way I wasn’t expecting.
Before I reveal my top pick, though, here’s a side-by-side comparison that sums up my experiences with the various bottles:
My top pick 🥇
While these were all excellent contenders, my favorite smart water bottle was the water.io.
With the light + vibrating drink reminders and the tilt to get instant feedback feature, it was the bottle that motivated me to drink most consistently. And it’s the one I’ve chosen to continue using even now that my experiment is over.
If you’re drinking enough water each day, keep right on doing what you’re doing. But given that 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated, I think it’s safe to say that most of us need more than hydration tips. We need a serious nudge.
I may have scoffed at first, but I must admit the smart water bottles took nudges to a whole new level. They were more effective than any hydration tips, tricks, or methods I’ve tried in the past.
If you’re in the chronically dehydrated camp, I encourage you to find your own way to meet your hydration goals, whether with technology, a pretty bottle, or some other drinking hack.
But keep an open mind about smart water bottles. They pleasantly surprised me. Maybe they’ll do the same for you.
Happy hydrating!
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