{"id":45364,"date":"2023-10-20T15:43:03","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/iot-water-bottle-will-be-the-drinking-buddy-you-cant-lose-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:43:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:43:03","slug":"iot-water-bottle-will-be-the-drinking-buddy-you-cant-lose-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/iot-water-bottle-will-be-the-drinking-buddy-you-cant-lose-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"IoT water bottle will be the drinking buddy you can\u2019t lose – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Melbourne-based startup is out to prove that nothing, not even the humble water bottle, is free from the Internet of Things.<\/p>\n

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ALPAKA will soon be launching a crowdfunding campaign for FLOW, a smart, internet-connected bottle that can alert the owner when it\u2019s left behind and make sure they\u2019re drinking enough water.<\/p>\n

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Co-founder Jin Li says he and Ramiro Gomez originally thought of the idea of combining a bottle with the IoT after becoming exasperated with buying fancy new bottles and then promptly losing them only weeks later.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo limit our dependence on bottled water we got these really expensive $70 stainless steel bottles,\u201d Lin says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey didn\u2019t look great, and we\u2019d leave them behind at the gym, and when we went back they\u2019d be gone. We\u2019d go through one of those bottles a month because we\u2019d keep forgetting them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tracking water consumption<\/b><\/p>\n

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So the duo started by incorporating a beacon sensor to \u201cact as a pyre\u201d and remind the owner if the bottle is left behind, and Li says this will have positive environmental impacts too.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDrinking bottled water isn\u2019t good for the environment,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plastics aren\u2019t recycled and they end up in the ocean or waste dump.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The founders then decided to fully embrace the Internet of Things and incorporate technology to track the owner\u2019s water consumption, which they then paired with an iOS and Android app.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you\u2019re not drinking enough, it will remind you,\u201d Li says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cCurrently a lot of people working in an office don\u2019t drink enough water every day. We want to focus on the people who want to stay healthy but have a really busy lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Li says he hopes to eventually be able to incorporate the technology with FitBit and similar devices, which only let users manually track their water consumption at the moment.<\/p>\n

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A statement piece<\/b><\/p>\n

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The FLOW bottle is also about bringing style to the old-fashioned bottle, he says, and turning an inconvenient but necessary product into a fashion statement. It\u2019ll be made using an aluminium alloy casing with an organic carbon filter and glass insert.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMost water bottles are the same, they all look very much the same,\u201d Li says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe want to do something that\u2019s unique, something to celebrate you and the 21st<\/sup> century. We\u2019ve combined that into a product we think will work and we\u2019ve worked with other companies to create the technology.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe want to make something you\u2019ll want to take with you every day. It\u2019s a statement piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

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ALPAKA will be launching an Indiegogo campaign for the IoT water bottle on 17 November and hope to raise $50,000 to cover the manufacturing costs, while the pair has already chipped in $40,000 for the initial costs.<\/p>\n

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Do you know more on this story or have a tip of your own? Raising capital or launching a startup? Let us know. Follow StartupSmart on<\/i> Facebook<\/i>,<\/i> Twitter<\/i>, and<\/i> LinkedIn<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Melbourne-based startup is out to prove that nothing, not even the humble water bottle, is free from the Internet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}