Here’s how this fun mobile app can help you meet your hydration goals, set streaks, and work toward other healthy habits.
Hydration Tracking With Waterllama
Getting enough fluid each day is crucial for your body’s functions, including temperature regulation and joint protection, according to the Mayo Clinic. But it can also be difficult to remember to hydrate throughout the day, and even mild dehydration can make you feel lethargic and groggy.
A 2022 Apple Design Awards Finalist, the Waterllama water tracker app is a popular hydration reminder for your smartphone that helps solve this problem. Made in Ukraine, the colorful app offers challenges and reminders to help track your water intake. It’s a charming, fun tool that can help you meet your health goals, including those beyond hydration (there’s a Vitamin Puffin and Lose Lactose Platypus character in the app, as well).
Using an app like Waterllama is a simple way to make drinking more water a daily habit. You can also go all-out with a smart water bottle. Even hydration gets some help from technology, so make hydrating easier to track by using your smartphone and connected devices.
Download: Water Tracker Waterllama for iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
Get Started With the Waterllama App
When you first open the Waterllama app, a gray outline of a llama fills the screen. As you drink water throughout the day and enter each amount, the llama fills with liquid. You can opt to measure the liquids in ounces or milliliters. It’s a quirky visual reminder to hydrate often, and you can see at a glance how far you are from your daily hydration goal.
In addition to water, you can also include other beverages, such as coffee, tea, juice, milk, soda, and even beer. Each beverage shows up as a different color stripe in your llama character, resulting in a vibrant visual display of your day’s beverages.
Tap on the llama at any point to see how much more you need to drink that day to reach your goal.
In the settings screen, you can adjust the daily hydration goal (64 ounces is the default). Keep in mind that factors such as your activity level and the local weather can influence how much water is best each day.
You can also set up reminders throughout the day to stay on top of your hydration goals. The Smart Reminders will chime in if you forget to log beverages into the app for two hours (but only between 8:00 am and 10:00 pm). The Settings section also includes an expanded list of beverages you can add to the app, including coconut water, lemonade, and almond milk.
You can pair the app with your Apple Watch, and it offers the option of syncing to Apple Health data, as well. A widget function lets you keep track of your beverage intake without even opening the app. The widget also displays your breakdown of beverages for the day, so you can check your progress at a glance. You will need an annual subscription (or you can make a one-time payment) in order to get full use of the app’s features.
In addition to Llama Lana, you’ll unlock other characters when you meet different hydration goals. Then, you can select a different character’s outline for your main screen, whether it’s a starfish, pelican, or some other creature. Each character has its own charming design, making it easy to see why this app was a finalist in the Delight and Fun category of the 2022 Apple Design Awards. Earn additional characters by leaving a 5-star review, inviting friends to use the app, or donating to the app’s creators.
How Does the Waterllama App Count Your Hydration?
Not every beverage counts toward your hydration total in the same way, and you can access a full list of beverages on the Add/Edit Drinks List. Water and sparkling water count for 100%, so you’ll get full credit for drinking 10 ounces of water, for instance. Black tea counts for 90%, so you’ll get credit for 9 ounces if you drink 10 ounces of tea. Alcohol counts as a negative, so you’ll get -95% for champagne and a whopping -318% for tequila.
Why are some drinks worth more toward your Waterllama hydration goal than others? According to hydration studies, including the beverage hydration index from The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, some beverages tend to contribute more to proper hydration and fluid retention than others.
Additional Health Benefits From the Waterllama App
If you’re into health and wellness challenge apps (and even more adorable characters), then the Waterllama app has you covered. For instance, the Escape Caffeine Capuchin is a 10-day challenge that asks you to stay below 55mg of caffeine per day. If you’d like to continue past 10 days, check out the coffee quitting apps designed specifically for this purpose.
Meanwhile, the Vitamin Puffin encourages you to drink one juice or smoothie each day, while Tea-Rex promotes a daily cup of tea. If you’re interested in going without lactose, beer, or wine for a few days, there are challenges for those goals, too. Just check out the Sober Bear, which has you avoid all alcohol for 10 days, as well as Weasel Out Wine and Drop Beer Deer.
If you start a challenge, that character can become the outline on your home screen. Plus, there’s a calendar that shows how long your streak has been going.
Make Hydration Fun With the Waterllama App
Although there are plenty of great hydration apps that remind you to drink more water, few have the colorful charm of the Waterllama app. It’s a playful reminder to drink up throughout the day and keep your other health goals in mind. Anyone looking to bring more H2O into their life will likely appreciate this app and its host of adorable characters.
