Home LivingWellnessI tried a smart bottle to see if it could trick me into drinking more waterThe Lucy Smart Cap tracks your hydration, and nags you to drink moreWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Home LivingWellnessI tried a smart bottle to see if it could trick me into drinking more waterThe Lucy Smart Cap tracks your hydration, and nags you to drink moreWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
The Lucy Smart Cap tracks your hydration, and nags you to drink more
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: waterdrop)
(Image credit: waterdrop)
We all know that drinking plenty of water is really good for us, but, just like ‘getting a full night’s sleep’ and ‘not eating a sharer bag of Malteasers alone, in one sitting’, that knowledge doesn’t always translate into healthy action. If your self-motivation efforts have been failing, perhaps it’s time to bring out the big guns.
The big guns, for the purposes of this article, are the Waterdrop Lucy Smart Cap and Hydration app. The cap monitors how much you’re drinking and reminds you when it’s time to take a sip, then collates the information in an app, so you can see how much (or not much, as the case may be) you’re drinking over time. This smart cap has another trick, too: it can purify the water you’re drinking through the magic of UV-C light, at just the press of a button.
Water purification on the go
Let’s start with the purification feature. Of course, it’s the kind of thing it’s hard to gauge the effectiveness of, beyond ‘I wasn’t confined to the bathroom 30 minutes later’, but the science is sound – UV-C is a reliableway to purify water in the wild, and a method found in ourbest water purifierguide. It’ll remove 99% of potential germs and bacteria in your water, without using any chemicals.
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
On the user side, the process couldn’t be simpler. You long-press the icon on the top of your Lucy, a bluish light is emitted, and maybe 90 seconds later it’s ready to drink. That seems like a long time to wait for something these days, but it’s still probably the quickest and lowest-effort way to purify water. This feature is perhaps most useful when combined with the metal bottles and used as ahiking water bottle. I had the glass bottle, which is really for urban / desk-based use, where a water cooler or kitchen tap is never far away, rendering it none too useful, unless you’re a bit of a germophobe.
Getting set up
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
You might be thinking that there are plenty of other things that affect how much you should drink, and you’d be right. Waterdrop has come up with a streamlined way to account for these, and you’ll find them in the Lifestyle section of the app. You can log a period of exercise, tell the app when it’s a hot day, or if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding (those latter two don’t need to be activated daily). You’re also required to tell the app when you’re drinking things from vessels that are not your Waterdrop bottle, so it can factor them into your hydration levels, with adjustments made for dehydrating liquids like beer and caffeine.
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Based on this, you’re given a daily target – mine is usually 2450ml; just over four full 600ml bottles. Finally, you connect the app to your Lucy cap, calibrate, and then fill it with water. If you’re on the ball, you remember to fish out the Silica gel pouch first.
Tracking and stats
The companion app automatically logs how much you’re drinking from your connected bottle and offers an overview of how much you’re drinking each day, whether you’re tracking for an optimally water-filled month. While it’s not perfect – sometimes you need to quit the app and relaunch for drinks to log properly, and there’s one of the worst-designed time selectors I’ve ever seen – it still offers up some interesting stats.
The introduction of a competitive element, badges for positive action and the ability to build up a streak of ‘perfect’ behaviour can be undeniably effective at establishing a habit (just ask my Duolingo). I found myself drinking more water and becoming much more aware of my drinking habits. No one wants to miss a goal or mess up a perfect week, even if it’s just for something as simple as drinking enough water.
If you’re neglecting to drink often enough, the icon on top of the cap will flash to remind you to take a sip (you can adjust the frequency of these flashes via the companion app). This element is only really effective if you’re sitting the bottle on your desk, where it’s clearly going to be visible all day – it’s no good if it’s flashing away in your bag.
(Image credit: Waterdrop)
(Image credit: Waterdrop)
The app will show you your percentage split of water to non-water, which I suspect will be a bit of a wake-up call for some people. Shortly before testing the Waterdrop system I had made a conscious decision to cut back significantly on my caffeine intake, but if I’d been using the smart cap a month or two earlier, I think the split of coffees and teas to water would have been a little more shocking.
Find out more orbuy a Lucy Smart Cap from Waterdrop.
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