AquaTrack calculates your daily fluid target from body weight, climate, and activity — and credits every drink by its peer-reviewed Beverage Hydration Index. Coffee counts. Tea counts. Milk counts more.
They assume 2 liters for everyone. They tell you coffee dehydrates you. They reward streaks instead of accuracy. None of that matches the science.
01 / Anti-pattern
Fixed 2 L goal
Regardless of who you are. Body weight, climate, training load — all ignored. A 55 kg writer and a 95 kg cyclist get the same target.
02 / Anti-pattern
Coffee penalized
Treated as a dehydrating drink, sometimes subtracted from your total. Not what the controlled trials actually measured.
03 / Anti-pattern
Streaks over substance
Plants that grow. Pet that drowns. Cartoon mascots. Gamification dressed up as measurement.
The science
Built on the actual research.
AquaTrack uses three things most water apps don't: a peer-reviewed Beverage Hydration Index from Maughan et al. (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2016), the EFSA 2010 Adequate Intake reference, and the IOM 2004 total-water Adequate Intake. Your personal target is derived from those values, then adjusted for body weight, activity level, and ambient temperature.
Primary source · BHI
A randomized trial to assess the potential of different beverages to affect hydration status
Maughan RJ, Watson P, Cordery PAA, Walsh NP, Oliver SJ, Dolci A, Rodriguez-Sanchez N, Galloway SDR · Am J Clin Nutr 2016;103:717–23
The outer ring shows your real hydration credit, weighted by the BHI of every drink. The inner ring shows raw volume. When they match, you're drinking mostly water. When the outer ring leads, you've earned hydration credit from milk, juice, or an electrolyte mix. When the inner ring leads, you've over-counted a sugary or alcoholic drink. The gap is the signal.
State A · Outer leads
Milk-heavy day
You drank less volume but earned more hydration credit. The ring rewards beverages that hydrate more efficiently — like skimmed milk at BHI 1.58.
State B · Aligned
All-water day
The rings sit on top of each other. You drank mostly water, so raw volume and hydration credit are the same number.
State C · Inner leads
Beer + soda day
You drank plenty of liquid, but a lot of it doesn't credit fully. The gap warns you that volume overstates how hydrated you actually are.
The Beverage Hydration Index
Not every drink is water.
Maughan et al. measured how much of each beverage your body actually retains two hours after drinking one liter. AquaTrack uses these values to credit your daily total. Still water is the reference at 1.00; values above 1.00 hydrate better, values below it hydrate worse.
Beverage
2-hour BHI
Significance vs water
Credits
Still water
1.00
— reference
100%
Sparkling water
≈ 1.00
Not significant
~100%
Sports drink
≈ 1.00
Not significant
~100%
Cola / Diet cola
≈ 1.00
Not significant
~100%
Coffee (black)
≈ 1.00
Not significant
~100%
Tea (black, hot or iced)
≈ 1.00
Not significant
~100%
Lager beer
≈ 1.00
Not significant (at tested dose)
~100%, flagged
Orange juice
1.39
P < 0.05
~139%
Oral rehydration solution
1.54 ± 0.74
P < 0.01
~154%
Full-fat milk
1.50 ± 0.58
P < 0.01
~150%
Skimmed milk
1.58 ± 0.60
P < 0.01
~158%
Source: Maughan RJ, Watson P, Cordery PAA, Walsh NP, Oliver SJ, Dolci A, Rodriguez-Sanchez N, Galloway SDR. A randomized trial to assess the potential of different beverages to affect hydration status: development of a beverage hydration index. Am J Clin Nutr 2016;103:717–23. DOI: 10.3945/ajcn.115.114769. The paper publishes precise 2-hour BHI means for ORS (1.54 ± 0.74), full-fat milk (1.50 ± 0.58), skimmed milk (1.58 ± 0.60), and orange juice (≈ 1.39 derived from the published mean difference of 0.39 vs water). The other nine beverages were not statistically different from still water at 2 h. AquaTrack applies the published values verbatim and uses 1.00 for the non-significant beverages.
Same physics, in your pocket.
Calculator
Find your daily water target.
Five quick questions for a personalized estimate — then AquaTrack tracks it for you, automatically, and credits every drink by how much it hydrates.
Hydration calculator
Your estimated daily target
—L
— ml/day
AquaTrack sets this target for you and adjusts it every day — by weight, weather, and activity — and credits every drink by how much it actually hydrates.
An estimate, not medical advice. Targets are clamped to 1.5–5 L; a result near those bounds, or any condition affecting fluid or sodium balance, warrants a check with a healthcare professional.
Capabilities
Eight things AquaTrack does that other water apps don't.
Personal daily target
Computed from your weight, climate zone, and activity level, anchored to EFSA 2010 and IOM 2004.
BHI-weighted credit
Every drink is credited by its peer-reviewed hydration index, not by raw volume.
Dual-ring dashboard
Outer ring is real hydration credit. Inner ring is raw volume. The gap tells you what your day really looked like.
Two-way HealthKit sync
Reads your weight, workouts, and ambient context; writes Dietary Water back to Apple Health.
40+ beverages, pre-calibrated
Coffee, tea, milk variants, juices, ORS, electrolyte mixes — each with its published BHI.
Climate adjustment
Your target rises with ambient temperature and humidity, drawn from WeatherKit.
Workout adjustment
Detected via HealthKit; added to your target proportional to duration and effort, not as a flat bonus.
Tabular history, exportable
CSV export of every logged drink, BHI applied, daily totals — for the people who want their own dashboards.
The product
Designed like an instrument.
Eight screens, no decoration. Eight places where measurement, not motivation, does the work.
1. Today — dual ring and drink stack.2. Log a drink — every beverage shows its BHI inline.3. Methodology — DOI and formula, no hand-waving.4. History — month heatmap with streak and target stats.5. Insights — weekly breakdown and beverage distribution.6. Achievements — five of ten unlocked, no fake milestones.7. Home-screen widget — log a drink without opening the app.8. Live Activity — progress lives on the lock screen.
Privacy
Your hydration data stays on your iPhone.
AquaTrack reads from and writes to Apple Health on-device. No analytics SDKs, no third-party trackers, no account required. Apple's App Review Guidelines (5.1.3) prohibit using HealthKit data for advertising or selling it to data brokers — AquaTrack follows that rule and goes further: there is no AquaTrack server that ever sees your hydration data.
“Information that you choose to share with apps through HealthKit may not be used for advertising, marketing, or sold to data brokers.” — Apple Health Privacy Overview, May 2023
On-device only No account required No third-party analytics SDKs
Founder note
Built solo. In public. In Ukraine.
P
I'm Pavel. I built AquaTrack because every other water tracker insulted me — fixed goals, cartoon mascots, no methodology, no respect for the user. AquaTrack is what I wanted on my own home screen. I'm shipping it from Dnipro, posting the changelog on X, and reading every email that lands at [email protected]. If something in the science is wrong, tell me. I will fix it in the next update.
Three honest, labeled placeholders. They will be replaced with verified quotes from real beta testers — by name and city — before public launch.
Synthetic placeholder
“The methodology screen sold me. I sent the DOI to my GP.”
— Beta tester · to be replaced with verifiable identity
Synthetic placeholder
“First water app I have not deleted in a week. It treats coffee like coffee, not like poison.”
— Beta tester · to be replaced with verifiable identity
Synthetic placeholder
“The dual ring finally explains why my old app's goal felt nonsensical on training days.”
— Beta tester · to be replaced with verifiable identity
FAQ
Questions, answered.
What is the Beverage Hydration Index?
A peer-reviewed measure of how much of a beverage your body retains two hours after drinking 1 L of it, calibrated against still water as 1.00. Published in Maughan et al., American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2016 (DOI: 10.3945/ajcn.115.114769). AquaTrack uses the published values verbatim.
How does AquaTrack calculate my daily target?
It starts from the EFSA 2010 reference Adequate Intake (2.5 L/day for men, 2.0 L/day for women; the IOM 2004 figures of 3.7 L and 2.7 L are total water and include water from food). It then adjusts for your body weight, activity level (read from HealthKit workouts), and ambient temperature (read from WeatherKit when you grant location).
Is the app really free?
Yes. Core tracking, the dual ring, HealthKit sync, and the BHI library are free forever. Premium ($29.99/year, $4.99/month, or $59.99 lifetime) unlocks advanced analytics, CSV export, multi-device history, and future advanced metrics. There is a 7-day free trial.
Is there a refund policy?
Refunds for App Store subscriptions are handled by Apple via reportaproblem.apple.com — Apple processes them at their discretion. The 7-day free trial is the no-risk way to evaluate Premium first.
Does it work with Apple Health?
Yes — two-way. AquaTrack reads weight, workouts, and (optionally) ambient context, and writes the "Dietary Water" sample type back to Apple Health, so the data shows up in the Health app and is available to any other app you grant access to.
What about privacy?
Hydration data stays on your device by default. No analytics SDKs. No third-party trackers. No account required. Per Apple's App Review Guidelines 5.1.3 and Apple's published Health Privacy Overview (May 2023), HealthKit data may not be used for advertising or sold to data brokers; AquaTrack abides and goes further by not running a server that ever sees your data.
Is there an Android version?
No, and there are no plans for one. AquaTrack is iOS-only because HealthKit, WeatherKit, and Apple Watch are the spine of the product.
Who is this app for?
Adults who already track other things — workouts, macros, sleep — and want hydration measured to the same standard. It is not designed for children or as a casual habit tracker.
How is this different from WaterMinder or Waterllama?
Those apps log volume and reward streaks. AquaTrack also weights every drink by its published Beverage Hydration Index, derives your daily target from validated reference intakes (not a fixed 2 L), and exposes the formula on a dedicated methodology screen.
Will the BHI values be kept up to date as new research is published?
Yes. The BHI table is content, not code — updated in-app via remote configuration. New peer-reviewed papers (e.g., subsequent BHI studies in older adults or with electrolyte solutions) will be added with the DOI shown inline.
Start measuring
Start tracking hydration the way a physiologist would.
Free to download. Seven-day trial of Premium. $29.99/year, $4.99/month, or $59.99 once.
