What is data-love? It’s a new term I’ve dubbed for the fanatical need for data. A term to describe tech fiends who must tally and track every single body movement, calorie consumed (or burned), and minute spent in the bathroom. And while I’m in love with the idea of making healthy living and fitness an efficient and measurable thing, I need to explain to you why and how this has gone too far. And I can do it with one brand new $99 tech product.
Meet Vessyl: A water bottle that plans to make the world dumber. Don’t believe me? Watch and read below.
It’s likely you’ve seen the ad on Facebook below. Vessyl is modern, attractive, and has a digital display. It took SEVEN (the ad below is incorrect) years of research to build (yes, a water bottle) and costs $99. So what does Vessyl do? Vessyl tells you what you’re drinking (because clearly you forgot), the temperature of your beverages, tracks how many ounces have been poured in and out of it per day, and it even calculates kilo-calories consumed based on the liquid inserted, all through its connected smartphone application. Oh, and it shows you how full your water bottle is. Are you face-palming yet?
The technological merit of this “smart” device is completely non-existent. I don’t know about you, but I can tell pretty well if my beverage is hot or cold using my hands, lips, and mouth. In addition, I’ve been able to track my daily liquid intake with the MyFitnessPal app just perfectly fine using my most useful technological tool: My brain. What happened to tracking behavior with your own memory? Is human error such a problem that I can’t document how many times I refilled my water bottle or thermos? God knows the ounce measurement on my Nalgene is far too outdated.
I get it, if you’re overweight, perhaps tracking how much soda and beer you’ve gone through per day could be valuable data. But with Vessyl aimed at the data-love fitness crowd, I find it hard to believe anyone purchasing this isn’t already chugging enough water throughout the day. Also, is anyone really going to pour their beer or wine into this over a nice wine glass or pint? Are you seriously going to pour your Starbucks beverages out of the container they gave you?
For me, Vessyl is a complete gimmick. And worse, it’s a gimmick people are going to pay for. While the Fitbits and Nike Fuelbands of the world could also fit into this argument, at least they track data I couldn’t calculate in my head in under a minute. The only benefit being achieved with Vessyl is the brief water cooler chatter at work about your new toy. If you have a counter-argument, I’d love to hear it, but I’ll be sticking to my Camelbak.
Don’t buy this water bottle, data-love fiends.