If you’re trying to lose weight or you just want to stay healthy, then you’re probably keeping a close eye on your calorie intake. It’s fairly easy to record what you eat, but what about what you drink? According to the National Health and Nutrition Education Survey, “Beverages are the #1 single source of calories,” so it’s important to keep track of what you’re chugging down in the course of a day. Since we tend to drink on the go, however, this can often be more challenging. This is where Vessyl comes in.
Vessyl is indistinguishable from other cups at first glance. It’s when you pour your beverage in that the magic happens. It identifies what you’re drinking and keeps track of it automatically and in real-time. It tells you how many calories are in your beverage as well as the total amount of caffeine, fat, protein, sugar, and so on. It also provides you with an estimate of your unique real-time hydration needs.
How it works
Vessyl’s interior is filled with sensors, which measure and analyze whatever liquid is poured into the cup on a molecular level. The cup’s creators at San Francisco-based Mark One aren’t giving out details about how exactly it works, but it’s so accurate that it feels like magic. It can distinguish not just different types of beverages (water, beer, juice, coffee, smoothies, etc.), but also different brands, and it automatically sends whatever info it has collected to the companion app. You can also view the basic numbers on the nifty little display, which is activated by a tilting gesture. For even more comprehensive tracking, Vessyl syncs not just to your iOS and Android mobile devices, but also to activity trackers.
Vessyl is going to retail for $199, but you can get it for $99 during the pre-order period. Vessyl is scheduled to ship in early 2015. I’ve got mine on order.
Wow this is an interesting product. It is following a wave of new calorie counting products that are making their way to market.
I will probably buy one for the wife, and no doubt end up using it myself. But, I really don’t want to get into the habit of micro managing my calorie intake, I think it is taking things a little too far.
Is it really accurate? Very hard to believe. It could be of great help even if it was a rough estimation, though. Lots of beverages like soda pop, energy drinks, and alcoholic beverages have a bizarre amount of calories and they can go up to as much as 1000 kcal per serving. This device can be of real help for people who wish to maintain their weight.
This is really interesting, first we have a microwave that counts calories then you have a mug. I hope the next thing would be a spoon and fork combo that beeps loudly whenever you’re eating too much or is you’re eating a lot of fat and cholesterol.
Same question with the microwave that counts calories, how accurate is this? I mean sure liquids can’t be hard to scan since it’s all mixed in but I’m just curious on how it really does that scanning thing.
My best guess on how this would work will pretty much be like how the microwave that counts calories would work, by scanning the liquid using a specific microwave wavelength.
My idea on this is that using the microwave, they will be able to identify the composition of the beverage, thus they will be able to list out all the ingredient maybe and further analyzes how it would translate to calories, sugar and etc.
This would be great for the diabetics since they will be able to monitor the sugar content they would be consuming for every drink.
The design is also very cool. 🙂 I hope that also comes with a lid too. And also does work like a thermal tumbler.
Thanks David for this cool article. I am looking forward to articles like this which features technology for the health conscious.
This looks like am awesome cup. I really would not mind trying this out. It looks very useful for so many people.
This is a little to crazy for my taste and the things I drink do not really bother me at all. Having enough water in my system eliminates the need for extra intake of other unnecessary liquids. I love coconut water and a couple sips eases my thirst. I try not to drink my calories, but it may be useful for others.
This cup, like the microwave, feels very futuristic. I would love a gadget like this. I’m pretty good at keeping tabs on the calories I consume but it would be nice to have the cup to do it for me. I try to drink water as often as possible and I don’t drink soda but it’s easy to get carried away on drinking sweet juices in the morning or wine at night. If I could see how many calories I consume monthly on beverages I’d probably cut back.
I love the microwave idea as well, but would love it even more if they created a dish and soup bowl that can actually let us know how many calories we are consuming. That would be awesome! We need something like this to pair it up with this amazing cup! I can imagine something like this being a big hit… so tired of always having to guess the calories of what I eat (not processed foods).
Hmmm, I do wonder how they manage to analyze the liquids in the cup. What an innovation indeed; simply using the Internet to determine what kind of drink is present would be normal, but actually going down to the molecular level to detect the drink is amazing. Though this seems more as a luxury than a necessity, those who do opt to use it will be very impressed. This kind of technology can be used for much more than just a calorie counter.
This is an amazing piece of product, I hope it can make suggestions based on your drinking habits like you need to drink water, milk, smoothies according to your body needs, etc, etc.
This is actually pretty amazing for such a device. I’ve honestly never thought of a cup being digitized at all. But honestly, I have some concerns for this. Considering that it can tell what types of drinks and even what brands of drinks are in the cup, the makers could sell that info to marketing agencies and that’s just one more piece of info that’s floating around on the cloud that I don’t want.
At first my reaction was, wow… what is that?! And then I watched the video and apparently that is what Vessyl does. It figures out what we’re drinking and then automatically figures out the calories in real time.
Great concept. It may look overpriced to some people at $199, but you certainly get an enormous value with your Vessyl. It helps bring quality drinking to your life, which can prove most beneficial to people in dietary regimes or having constant special needs with their meal quality.
I’ve always considered drinks an integral part of any meal, so Vessyl is a big improvement over a regular cup.
Wow, I think this is the closest we’ve come to pure magic! I would definitely purchase this for $199. This is a very useful and interesting device to say the least. It’s particularly useful if you’re counting your macros.
Now this is something I’d love to get for Christmas, that and something that can a plate that can actually do the same with food. We have apps hat can help us keep track of calories, but let’s be honest… they numbers we see there are not 100% accurate, it’s nothing more than just wild guesses…