American sports beverage brand Gatorade, part of PepsiCo, has launched a new bottle that tracks personalised hydration needs and indicates to athletes when to drink, via a cap that lights up as an alert mechanism.
The bottle, part of the company’s Gx range, is called the Smart Gx water bottle, and as well as the smart cap, features an additional app and sweat patch for real-time measurement and advice on hydration.
These suggestions are tailored to each user and are gathered through data collected from the individual’s sweat patch and app. Gatorade claims the bottle is the world’s first smart squeeze bottle and the only smart bottle with light-up cap tracking.
A spokesperson for the company said that they expect the biggest impact the Smart Gx Bottle will have on the packaging industry is the importance of personalized fueling and hydration for athletes, through a smart bottle that everyday athletes can have at home.
The company founded the Gatorade Sports Science Institute in 1985 to study the relationship and effects of nutrition on the human body before, during and after workouts. After extensive research, it has now come up with this new, connected water bottle to help users keep track of their hydration levels.
From the outside, the Smart Gx Bottle might seem like any average water bottle but like other smart fitness features, this new smart bottle too can be connected to a device via the iOS-only Gatorade Gx App, which the company says is a “personalised nutrition & training platform that helps athletes achieve their performance goals”.
Once users synchronise the bottle with the app, it will then start tracking the individual’s daily progress via an array of sensors located on the cap and even tell them how much beverage is left inside the bottle.
The smart bottle will tell the user when it needs to be refilled and provide them with exact readings of daily hydration. Inside the top cap are located several small LEDs that display users’ daily progress and also notify them to drink water from time to time.
All the critical user health data and insights can be viewed inside the Gx App. The Smart Gx Bottle gets all its power via an in-built battery which can be charged via USB. Gatorade claims that one full charge should last roughly three to five days.
To give users an even more personalised experience, Gatorade is enabling customers to have their names engraved on the bottle. The company believes the new smart water bottle will help to ensure the brand stays at the forefront of how to keep our bodies hydrated.
Currently, the only major drawback to have been identified is that the Smart Gx is not designed to store hot or extremely cold liquids, as they could end up damaging the cap. So, hot teas or iced coffees are a no-go.
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This article was created in collaboration with AIPIA (the Active and Intelligent Packaging Industry Association). Packaging Europe and AIPIA are joining forces to bring news and commentary about the active and intelligent packaging landscape to a larger audience. To learn more about this partnership, click here.
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