Suck at drinking water?
An app might be a great way to help you get on track. Water tracking apps can help you determine the right amount to drink, track your drinking habits and establish new habits.
If you’ve used a tracking app before, you already know that most apps have pros and cons, and likewise, there is no perfect water drinking app. I decided to try a bunch and put together my favorite water drinking apps for 2024 to help you focus on meeting your hydration goals.
Water Tracking Apps For 2024
Plant Nanny 2
Price: Free
iPhone & Android
Need some external motivation? What about keeping a little plant alive? Plant Nanny 2 combines the growing of cute plants in a game world, with water tracking. It’s maybe not as comprehensive as some other water trackers but if you’re motivated by game play, it’s a great option. Plant Nanny 2 works by reminding you at intervals to water your plant so that it doesn’t die. For every ounce you water your plant, you’re supposed to water yourself as well.
As you water your new found little buddy it grows and blossoms eventually getting big enough to move to the greenhouse. But it doesn’t stop there, your greenhouse has various layers, each able to hold three plants. Once a layer is full you can continue to level up by using sunlight. Eventually you’ll be able to collect seeds that will give you more points and allow you to grow higher value plants. Along the way you can collect points to buy new pots, and other types of plants. You can also unlock creatures that are unique to each layer and help boost your plant health.
Plant Nanny 2 is beautifully designed with informational cards about the plants you’re caring for and the creatures you uncover. Obviously this type of game play is going to be great for some people and way too much of a hassle for others. While any app requires you to open it and add your water (unless you have one of those magic bottles that auto syncs your water consumption), this app provides additional game play that may not be suitable for everyone. But if it sounds appealing to you, give it a go!
Just like in other clicker style games, there are opportunities to pay for premium features that unlock things like picking personalities for your plants, and eliminating ads. You’ll also have the opportunities to upgrade things with single purchases as you play.
Hydro Coach
Price: Free + Upgrade For More Features
iPhone & Android
Another water-tracking only app. Hydro Coach has many options for tracking your water intake (as they should as a paid app). You can ask for reminders, and water intake alerts. You’ll also see your water consumption goals and complete stats. This app also allows you to track things other than water, which can be useful for adjusting your suggested water intake.
Because I tried this app back in 2019, I wasn’t able to retry it without paying, which I opted not to do, but if it’s similar to how it was a couple of years ago, it’s a really functional app and there’s not much to complain about. For me personally, I’m not really into paying a monthly or yearly amount for apps that provide basic functions like water tracking. There are plenty of free ones that work just fine. However, many people LOVE this app and it’s the only one that works for them. So, give the free trial a go, if you love it, get the $30/year subscription-that’s like one meal eating out at a moderately nice restaurant if you put it into perspective.
Aloe Bud
Price: Free
iPhone Only
This app isn’t just for drinking water, but for lots of aspects of self-care from going to bed on time to working out and brushing your teeth.
The thing that’s most appealing to me about Aloe Bud is the unique no-pressure way that they address self-care in general. While self-care has become a pressured and loaded term in modern society, Aloe Bud takes it back to the basics and encourages you to just do your best. You didn’t meditate everyday this year? It’s okay, just breathe, it’ll be okay.
This gentle approach while easy to appreciate does come at a cost if you’re wanting to track specific results. While you will get fun and unobtrusive reminders to drink your water, Aloe Bud doesn’t track total consumption, so you’re left to tally your own results (if that matters to you).
As far as water tracking goes, you have two options with this app. The first option is to do a simple one-tap check-in which simply marks that you’ve had something to drink and the time. The second option for water tracking is to write a reflection where you can fill out detailed information.
If you actually find the app appealing and use it, you will probably find yourself drinking more water. But, then again, it’s hard to say for sure just how much more water you’ll consume. At the end of my three months with Aloe Bud, I definitely appreciated the app, for just encouraging me to truly do some self-care without any expectations for myself, but I don’t know what progress I really made while using it. So, if you’re genuinely wanting an app that tracks and helps you meet goals, this one is probably not for you. On the other hand, if you’re just trying to keep your head above water and want to be gentle with yourself, give it a try!
The app is free with two different upgrades. One is $1.99 which opens more reminders and topics to track. The other is $3.99. You definitely DON’T need either to use the app.
This app is also only available on the apple store, but it’s supposed to be coming out on Android sometime during 2022.
Daily Water
Price: Free
This app has all the standard water tracking features in a sleek easy-to-use format. What makes Daily Water unique though is the ability to set your own water goals. This is great if you want to aim for less than or more than the standard recommend amount.
Waterlogged
Price: Free
Waterlogged is an IOS only app. It’s unique in that it lets you measure beverages other than just water. It also lets you save your “favorite” drinks. So, if you use the same water bottle at the gym everyday, you can save the correct size and easily add it to your daily log.
My Water Balance
Price: Free
Linking to Fitbit and Apple Health, the Water Balance app allows you to challenge your friends to a little friendly compition.
Daily Water Tracking Reminder is the top water tracking apps that comes up when searching on my iPhone. Would I recommend it? Absolutely not (at least not for iPhone users).
In my initial testing in 2019, this was an Android only app, and perhaps it should have stayed that way. In downloading the app I couldn’t get past the initial screen to sign up as they ads placed over the “next” button. In reading recent reviews it sounds like this has been an ongoing issue for at least 5 months. While you can pay $9.99 for ad removal, several recent reviews said they paid the $9.99 and not only did the ads remain, but they couldn’t get help from customer support to get them removed. Needless to say, I wasn’t motivated to spend money attempting removal.
Another issue I have with the app’s is its inclusivity to larger people. The app won’t let you use it if you weigh over 264 pounds. We know that in 2019, 30% of the United States population weighted over 200 pounds and that number was skyrocketing with the COVID pandemic. I think it’s reasonable to say that Daily Water Tracking Reminder is excluding at least 1 out of every 10 Americans from using the app with their weight restrictions. In a global pandemic where people need the support to get healthy more than ever this seems like an unnecessary blow.
Last, while the app is generally highly rated and may be a good option for Android users (I wouldn’t know this for sure), a common complaint is that the app requires you to pay $1.99 or leave a 5 star review to keep using it after your initial trial period is up (which isn’t mentioned upon sign up). I couldn’t even set my account up, so I can’t verify if this is accurate in 2022, but my presumption is that many of the early 5 star reviews that boosted this app to the top were left by this initiative. Does that mean it’s a bad app all the way around? Of course not, but it does leave some questions about where this app should really sit in the word of water tracking apps. In my opinion it’s a last grab for me.