Whenever I feel tired of growing up, one of the first questions my mom asks me is, “Have you ever been drink enough water?” On top of this, I’ve been a health writer for the last decade, which has solidified my knowledge of how important persistence is. adequate hydration every day. However, I never kept track of the amount of water I drank. I believe my body will tell me when it’s thirsty and drink enough water.

I was wrong. That’s when I started trying hydration-tracking Larq bottle purevis 2 for CNET best self cleaning water bottle listI realized that my previous method of hydration wasn’t cutting it. Now that I have a water bottle to track my water consumption, it’s clear that maybe I wasn’t drinking enough water before, and that this was negatively affecting my health.

What I love about my water bottle is that it tracks hydration

LARQ PureVis 2 is primarily designed to keep your water sanitized using UV-C LED technology to remove 99.999% of Salmonella and 99.99% of E. coli. It also has a filtered straw that removes pharmaceuticals, chlorine, PFOS and PFOA. The latter two are lab-made chemicals can have harmful effects on health.

However, my favorite part is that it connects to the LARQ app, which allows you to track your water intake.

To determine how much water you should drink each day, LARQ asks for your birthday, gender, height, weight and activity level. You can also change this value yourself.

Lots of visuals on drinking water

On the main screen of the LARQ app, there is a percentage, a fraction and a line graph that shows how much you are currently drinking. Based on the time of day, a curved status bar also shows whether you’ve drunk enough water at a pace that will allow you to reach your daily goal. In the app, you can set your “wake up” and “sleep” time to determine your timeline.

I love that this bottle offers multiple visual indicators to show how much water you’re drinking, so I can easily tell at a glance when I need to take more sips. You can also set up hydration reminders that trigger the top of the water bottle to light up during your waking hours, prompting you to drink more water. This light is very bright, so you will not miss it.

In between the two tabs in the app at the bottom is a plus sign that you can click to add drinks that aren’t from your water bottle. Admittedly, sometimes I forget to do this. Six options are included — water, coffee, tea, soda, juice and milk — where you can add the number of ounces and the time you drink the drink.

Dive into your hydration history

At the top, it shows the days of the week, each surrounded by a curved status bar, so you can look back on how much water you drank. If I feel drained or low on energy for a few days, I often go back to this schedule and realize that I haven’t been drinking enough water, such as Dehydration can cause fatigue.

Below the line graph is a “Streak” section that shows how many days in a row you’ve reached 100% of your hydration goal and your personal best. At the bottom is “History,” where you can see each time you drank water from the bottle and how much you drank.

Eco-friendly analytics

If you click on the “Devices” tab in the bottom bar, you will see your device, its battery level, the last time it was purified with the UV-C LED and information about your straw filter, if you choose to use it. If you click on the filter, you will see its age, the filtered quantity, the percentage used up and the option to order a three packs of new filters ($30+).

In the upper right, there is an analytics button that shows some of my favorite data. There is a bar graph that shows how many gallons of water you drank in the last week, month or six months. Below that, you can see your environmental and financial impact: how much money you save on bottled water, your reduced carbon footprint and reduced plastic waste.

Long battery life

A full charge with the included USB-C cable lasts two to three weeks. Normally, mine lasts about three weeks, but I don’t use “adventure mode,” which requires extra power and 3 minutes to clean the bottle itself with a UV-C LED. It is best used with less reliable water sources in the backcountry, such as on hikes.

Instead, I allow my bottle to automatically clean itself in normal mode, which activates every 2 hours for 10 seconds. Sometimes I also press the top button once (trigger adventure mode twice) to turn on normal mode for 1 minute.

What I don’t like about this water bottle

Price: As for the reason why I hate how expensive this water bottle is, it’s mainly the price. The 23-ounce version costs $129, while the 34-ounce bottle (the one I have) is $139. That’s expensive for a bottle of water. The cheaper alternative is a bottle with hour and ounce markingsbut you need to track the daily total yourself. This is one There are also motivational phrases.

Manual cleaning: Another disadvantage is that you have to clean the bottle by hand. Although it is “self-cleaning,” it can only be used on water and parts of the bottle that UV-C LED technology can reach. So, LARQ still recommends giving the bottle — and especially the cap where applicable — a warm, soapy wash regularly.

The straw: Tired of cleaning the straw, and since I had a hard time putting it in the mouth of the bottle, I decided to remove it. I already fill the bottle with filtered water and avoid using it from less reliable sources, like running water on hikes, so I don’t need to keep the straw.

Size: Lastly, the only other downside I can think of is that the 34-ounce bottle doesn’t fit in my car cup holder, so I have to slide it into the door compartment of my car or put it on the passenger seat. However, it fits in the bottle pocket on the side of my backpack when I travel. It fell into a pocket once and survived the fall with only a small tear on the stainless steel bottle and a small scratch on the BPA-free plastic cap.

The final verdict

Even with the cons I mentioned, I still love this water bottle. The hydration tracking feature helps me make sure I drink enough water every day, which supports my health and, especially, my energy. I also like that it gives me data about how much plastic waste I’ve prevented by drinking it. reusable bottle.

In fact, it has become my emotional support water bottle. I’m grateful that it gives me one less thing to keep an eye on during the day, at least one of the most important: my hydration.