One Bottle Review: Now You Can Have Your Water and Drink it too!

I am not a fan of hydration bladders. They’re tricky to refill, you can’t stand them up like a bottle, and they’re a pain to clean. I do like how they promote better hydration by always having an available sip at your fingertips, but the pros still do not outweigh the cons for me.

And then the One Bottle came along…

One Bottle is an innovative adapter that essentially turns your Smartwater or Nalgene bottle into a hydration bladder/ water bottle hybrid. You can have your water and drink it too!

How One Bottle Works

One Bottle allows a drinking tube to be installed to virtually any water bottle on the market. Replace your water bottle cap with the cap provided in the One Bottle kit. Insert the drinking tube, ensuring it reaches the very bottom of your water bottle. Then secure your water bottle to your pack, feed the tube around your pack, secure the tube to a shoulder strap, and you’re ready to go.

One Bottle has thought of everything, and they include every little feature necessary to make the transition from water bottle to makeshift hydration bladder a piece of cake. (Note: the magnetic tube clip and insulated tube cover are sold separately as add-ons.)

Bottle Compatibility

One Bottle is compatible with almost every bottle style out there — but it is important to purchase the right size kit for the water bottle you intend to use. GGG stocks the adapter kits for 28mm bottles (Smartwater, Fiji, Life WTR, Essentia, most soda bottles).

OneBottle also offers directly on their site adapter kits for wide-mouth bottles with a 63mm opening (Nalgene, Hydro Flask, YETI Chug/MagDock lids, ThermoFlask, Takeya). Do you have a uniquely sized water bottle? One Bottle will 3D print you a custom adapter to fit your specific vessel. No matter what, they have you covered. So keep a lid on it ; )

Lid Adapter for 28mm Water Bottles (Smartwater)

Flip-Top Lid for Wide-Mouth Water Bottles

For wide-mouth bottles, like Nalgenes and Hydro Flasks, One Bottle makes a custom flip top lid that reduces the mouth piece to the size of the hose attachment. I actually prefer this lid over the original lid on my Nalgene and I use it in my day-to-day when I’m not needing the hose attachment. The mouthpiece is much easier to drink out of without spilling water down your front, and you can still unscrew it and utilize the wide mouth for adding your favorite hydration supplement. It also features an excellent carrying handle, a mouthpiece cover, and a narrow rubber sleeve for better grip.

Drinking Tube

The included drinking tube is 43” long, ⅜” around and is compatible with most hydration bladder parts. I’ve found the tube to be plenty long enough to reach to the bottom of my water bottle when it’s tucked into the mesh pocket of my backpack, with the tube able to extend all the way around my shoulder to an accessible drinking location.

An insulation sleeve for the drinking tube is an optional add-on. No one likes a tube full of warm, stagnant water in the summer or one clogged with ice in the winter, and the insulation sleeve helps minimize this unpleasant possibility.

The Bite Valve on the drinking end of the tube has an on/ off switch, which does an excellent job at preventing unwanted leaks. It also has a nice little bite valve cover to keep it dust free.

Packstrap Clips

The One Bottle comes with two packstrap clips to keep your bite valve handy. The first clip fits on most 1” and ¾” packstraps. The clip rotates 360 degrees, locking at 45 degree increments, so you can dial in exactly how you want your bite valve to sit on your pack strap.

The second packstrap clip, and my favorite, is the magnetic clip. Something about magnets is just super cool, and they seem to make everything easier. With the magnetic clip, you don’t have to fiddle with releasing the hose from the clip any time you want to free it.

I like how One Bottle has made everything adjustable, right down to the packstrap clip. They could have included a clip that just gets the job done at minimal cost to them, but they understand that every little personal adjustment contributes to a comfortable and efficient hiking experience. The packstrap clip stays in place when you want it to, but still moves and adjusts with ease. 

Practicality

The practicality of a hydration pouch like a Camelbak is great, but you have to be wearing the pack for it to be useful. Say you’re flying across the country for work and you want to include some long day hikes in your travel plans. The One Bottle keeps you from having to carry a water bottle for everyday use and an additional hydration pack for your hikes. The One Bottle hose takes up minimal space in your bag and allows you to easily convert your water bottle into an efficient hydration system.

Multi-use items, whether they’re for a road trip, air travel, or out on the trail, help with packing light. The One Bottle does this with your water bottle of choice and saves a significant amount of packing weight and volume.

Good to Know

• The water tube is available in your choice of TPU or silicone. 
• The water tube can be trimmed with scissors to the length. 
• Cutting the end of the tube that goes into your water bottle at a 45-degree angle helps prevent the tube from creating unwanted suction against the bottle wall/ bottom. 
• Cold water stiffens the drinking tube, helping it to slide through the One Bottle cap, to reach the bottom of your water bottle. 
• While One Bottle advises against it because of the potential for leaking, I’ve even found that it works on my 2 liter CNOC bladder; so if I did for some reason decide to go for a more traditional-style hydration pack, I could do that with the One Bottle and the CNOC bladder. It sounds cliche to say, but the possibilities are absolutely endless.

Final Thoughts

As someone who typically hates hydration bladders, I’m sold on the One Bottle. It provides the best of both worlds. I love that they’ve thought of absolutely every detail and I can’t believe this thing hasn’t blown up yet.

One Bottle 28mm Hydration System (for SmartWater)

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> Also Check Out Grandpa’s Article: Why a Fanny Pack is Always Part of My Backpacking Kit

> Continue Hiking with 'Grandpa': @bert.kertzer