GROW: a smart bottle that uses its surface as an ambient display to motivate daily water intake

Abstract

Water is an essential nutrient for human health. However, individuals may ignore drinking enough water due to the rush of everyday life. We present Grow, a conceptual smart bottle prototype designed to encourage users to drink water regularly. Our concept utilizes bottle surface as an ambient display instead of a traditional screen-based display to give feedback. Grow tracks daily water intake through an embedded liquid level sensor. It gives positive, abstract, non-intrusive and aesthetic feedback through heating up different parts of a thermo-chromic print on its surface (a tree image). We also present the results of a user study exploring 10 prospective users' reactions to Grow as well as their expectations of smart water bottles in general.