You have never seen a Water Bottle with this Many Features...

Hey Guys, how are you doing?

Before we begin, HUGE thanks to The Hydra Team for sending out The Hydra Smart Bottle for me to check out! The Hydra Smart Bottle is...interesting, let's see why.

It seems like everything is "smart" these days, in one way or another every manufacturer is trying to sell you a "smart" product that has some "extremely revolutionary" feature, but how do you know which ones are good and which ones are trash? The Hydra Smart Bottle has:

- A Bluetooth speaker

- An SOS Flasher

- A flashlight/lamp along with RGB lights

- A 4,000 mAh Power Bank(cable included)

- 600 ML Water Capability

- Removable and interchangeable bottoms(with a hidden storage bottom included)

- BPA Free

- Microphone-equipped to take phone calls

- Metal Carabiner Clip with a bottle opener

- FM Radio

That's a LOT of features in a relatively small package, but are they any good?

Lets go from top to bottom, shall we?

The Bluetooth Speaker is well built, featuring a metal grille, buttons up front, and an extendable plastic stand with rubber feet that are supposed to, "increase the bass of the speaker by transferring it through the rubber feet into the surface that the speaker is on", I tried this "feature" on a couple different surfaces(wood, metal, etc.) and did NOT feel anything. Is this marketing, or just a theory? The plastic bass ring slides up to reveal a 3.5mm Audio Jack along with a Micro USB port for charging up the Bluetooth Speaker. The speaker's sound quality is sub par, but definitely better than anything out of a Smartphone, and it get's quite loud for something of this size. It has an electronic voice that says, "Hydra Smart Bottle Connected" and "Goodbye" along with some other audible feedback in an EXTREMELY Cyborg-like fashion. I would love for there to be an app that controls this, I will talk about this more later.

The lights are a SUPER COOL addition. They cycle between 3 different modes, Pure White, RGB Lights, and a flashing red light. All are exceptionally bright and reach their brightest point when there is liquid inside the bottle. This brings me to one of my BIGGEST GRIPES with The Hydra Smart Bottle, the lack of a dedicated app. Yes, there is an app, but that is to play "soothing night-time tones" to "help you sleep better". I would LOVE to see a dedicated, well designed app that can control the color of the LED'S inside the bottle at any given time and make them stay a specific color. This app should also control what specific FM Radio frequency that it is outputting at any given time, instead of controlling it through a series of button presses.

The power bank is a really cool and SUPER USEFUL addition as well, it is 4,000 mAh, so it should charge virtually EVERY phone on the market right now, at least one time. Another HUGE gripe I have with The Hydra Smart Bottle is the need to charge TWO THINGS SEPARATELY! You need to charge the 4,000 mAh power bank that powers the LED'S and the Bluetooth speaker SEPARATELY! This is EXTREMELY INCONVENIENT.

Now, actually using the water bottle for it's intended purpose, is....disappointing.

I don't want to be taking the ENTIRE speaker module off, in order to drink water and putting it back on. The next problem with this is opening the spout to drink water, the spout is made out of this rough plastic material that's not comfortable to drink out of, it's also INCREDIBLY HARD to pull up. Say, if you're running and want a quick sip of water, you aren't going to have anywhere to place the bluetooth speaker module once it's off, and with that in your hand, you're also not going to have enough grip in order to pull the spout up, and FINALLY drink some water.

The interchangeable bottoms are a GREAT idea and work REALLY WELL, i especially LOVE the fact that they include one in the box. One gripe I have with this is, I wish the interchangeable bottoms also functioned as interchangeable TOPS. If that wasn't possible, it would be nice to see a interchangeable top included in the box along with the interchangeable bottom.

Some other gripes I have:

- The bottle is just generally bulky

- Weight

The bottle is EXTREMELY HEAVY! I did NOT like carrying this around school ALL DAY, it was bulky, heavy, and even HEAVIER with WATER IN IT! Water Bottles are supposed to be light and portable, yet those are the LAST two words I would use to describe The Hydra Smart Bottle!

Final Verdict - 7/10

The Hydra Smart Bottle is a surprisingly useful piece of tech and yes, it has it's faults, but for $60 on Amazon it makes a great gift!

Well, thanks for reading guys and i'll see you in the next one!