Vessyl Automatically Knows What You're Drinking in Real-Time

What if you could pour any liquid into a cup and it told you everything you needed to know about it. Well today, cofounder Justin Lee and Jawbone designer Yves Behar have come up with a smart cup that does just that. Vessyl, a 13-ounce cup recognizes any beverage you pour into it, displaying its nutritional content, and syncs all your drinking habits to your smartphone.

The smart cup is great for those looking to improve their health.

Vessyl lets you choose different “lenses” that you specifically want to track, like caffeine, calories, sugar, fat, protein, and sodium. Vessyl also estimates, tracks, and displays your real-time hydration needs. Your “Pryme,” which is the company’s proprietary metric of your hydration needs, is displayed on the cup itself. You simply tilt the cup to activate the display. That blue light at the top means you’re fully hydrated. Throughout the day, that line will fluctuate.

“Consumption is as important or more important as what we track through exercise,” says Lee, “so we developed a sensor that could instantly analyze the nutritional content of what’s inside a beverage … on a molecular level.” Lee won’t say exactly how the sensor works. He likens it to the kind of sensor you’d find in a bottling factory that analyzes batches of liquid (or other foods) to make sure each batch is consistent. “It’s the kind of sensor you’d use for quality control,” Lee says, “and the sensor doesn’t degrade. It’s non-contact.”