So I kept/keep getting headaches, primarily I thought because I work stupid hours in front of two screens in a fairly small office surrounded by storage boxes (I blame @teslaownersuk for that), so I purchased some plants & some ‘self-watering’ pots to improve the CO2 levels, another HEPA filter to further improve airflow/quality, checked some self-storage facilities out and finally I went to the opticians to get my eyes checked (using a 10ways deal, of course, to get it for free).
Air quality in the room improved (I’m sad/cool enough to monitor the air quality in my office), although it’s still not as good as I had hoped it would be. The good levels are 0ppm-1,000ppm of CO2 and 1000-2000ppm is when you start to complain of stuffy rooms and headaches and the office is normally 400-800ppm which isn’t ideal but isn’t bad.
For those interested, I have an IFTTT applet in place that alerts me when it hits 1000+ so I can open a window or go for a walk etc.
Anyway, the opticians said my eyes were better than 20/20 and I had nothing to worry about, however, he did ask about what I do for a living etc, I then mentioned the headaches and he confirmed it’s probably two things:
- Dehydration
- Looking at a computer screen for long periods of time
Pretty obvious stuff but it’s always good to get a professional to confirm, so these past few weeks I’ve been trying to do the 20–20–20 rule: Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. I’ve done a poor job of it, to be honest, so I’ve downloaded a Mac app called ‘Break For Eyes’ which forces me to do it.
The lack of enough drinking water is something I’ve always struggled with, my wife often will remind me of this, so in an effort to force myself to drink more I researched the best reusable water bottles, my criteria was:
- It must last a long time and continue to look good after at least 6 months of use (something we’ve struggled with on our Contigo mugs that have all lost their paint over the years and now look pretty crappy)
- Not made from plastic, as some of the previous ones I’ve had taste odd after a while and we don’t need more plastic in our lives
- Be aesthetically pleasing, basically, if I can get something all black I’ll be happy.
- Be around the 500ml size, as the larger ones I found I would use at my desk but I’d never take them elsewhere as they were too bulky.
Of course, I couldn’t really find exactly what I wanted until I found something that intrigued me and seemed interesting, however, it was from an advert on Facebook… (I don’t run adblocker on Facebook as it doesn’t allow me to use the Facebook Ads section of the site which I need for work) and for the first time ever, after a little bit of research (basically to check it wasn’t a scam) I purchased something from a Facebook ad… the shame! 😂
In the meantime, I set up an app that reminds me to drink every few hours and I waited for this stupidly expensive bottle* to arrive in the hope that technology would push me to drink more and cure the headaches.
I’ve now been using the LARQ water bottle with it’s self-cleaning UV-C light now for ~20 days and I can confirm I’m drinking more water *the crowd goes wild*, I take the bottle out with me when we go for walks/to the shops/in the car etc (something I simply didn’t do with water bottles in the past).
OK, so I admit this isn’t really groundbreaking stuff… I could have done the same with a £5 bottle and whilst I know part of me simply wants someone to ask about it’s Amazon Alexa style lights on the top I do think it’s a good water bottle that fits all of my criteria, so I’m sort of happy with the decision and I’m drinking more water which is good and has helped with the headaches.
However, the problem with the LARQ bottle is that for £98.95 incl shipping I really wish it had two obvious additional features:
- A built-in data logger/tracker that counts/tracks every time I open the lid and the number of times / length of time / quantity of water I drink. This seems like such a no brainer (minus the battery life hit it would have).
- Then a Bluetooth linked app that basically says ‘Oi, you’re not drinking enough’
One thing I hadn’t appreciated is that one of the reasons I disliked water bottles in the past was that to clean them it was a pain, you had to get one of those odd-looking brushes, place it in the dishwasher hoping the jets would actually fire into the bottle or use washing up liquid and then end up wasting so much water trying to remove the last faint taste of Fairy Liquid. With the LARQ bottle I’ve never washed it… that feels wrong to write but it’s true, I’ve given it a quick rinse and then emptied the water on the plants in the kitchen but nothing more and that’s probably one of the best parts of the bottle as lets be honest I’m not going to be scooping up water into this bottle from a river anytime soon and require the water purification system.
Would I buy the bottle again?
Probably yes
Would I recommend the bottle to others?
I guess
Is it worth £95?
Not really, whilst I’m not sure the true cost of a UV-C light inside an aluminium bottle, I think the price needs to come down to £50 really for it to be considered ‘Good Value’.
Disclosure: I wasn’t given a test/free bottle, I paid full price for it which annoyed me no end as I knew I’d end up reviewing it. If you buy a LARQ bottle this link I might get paid for it, this isn’t because I have an agreement with LARQ it’s because of the system I use to generate income from links.