Water tracker with caffeine and alcohol logging

How it works in FORM

1. Add the Water widgetPut the Water widget on your iPhone Home Screen. Its +250 ml button logs a glass without opening the app.
2. Log as you drinkTap +250 ml for each glass, or log water in the app. The day’s total updates as you go.
3. Log caffeine and alcoholAdd coffee, tea, energy drinks and alcohol in the app, so they count on the same day as your water.
4. Set a reminderTurn on water reminders if you tend to forget to drink during the day.

Where the numbers come from

There’s no single official number. EFSA’s reference values (2010) are about 2.0 L of total water a day for women and 2.5 L for men. The US National Academies (2004) set higher figures, about 2.7 L for women and 3.7 L for men, also counting food and every drink. Both are adequate intakes: amounts that cover most healthy adults in a moderate climate with moderate activity, not minimums you must hit. The old rule of eight glasses a day, about 2 L, is a rule of thumb rather than a reference value.

What changes how much you need

• Heat and humidity: you lose more water through sweat on hot days.
• Exercise: a hard hour of training can mean a liter or more of extra sweat, depending on you and the conditions.
• Pregnancy and breastfeeding: both raise needs. Ask your midwife or doctor for a number.
• Food: fruit, vegetables, soup and yogurt are mostly water and count toward the total.
• Thirst: for most healthy adults, thirst and pale yellow urine are reasonable everyday guides.

What FORM tracks

FORM logs water, caffeine and alcohol as part of the day. The fastest way in is the iPhone Water widget: tap +250 ml and the glass is logged without opening the app. Water reminders can nudge you through the afternoon. Water you log is written back to Apple Health if you allow it, so other apps can see it too. The Apple Health use case covers the permissions.

The widget’s 250 ml step makes the reference values easy to picture. Six taps is 1.5 L, inside the drinks range for women. Seven or eight taps covers the range for men. A glass with each of three meals, two more between them and one after training is already six.

Caffeine and alcohol, counted plainly

EFSA and the FDA consider caffeine up to about 400 mg a day safe for most healthy adults. That’s roughly four cups of brewed coffee, though cups vary a lot by size, bean and brew. EFSA advises up to 200 mg a day in pregnancy. Energy drinks and pre-workout powders can carry a lot in one serving. Timing matters as well as the total: EFSA notes that even 100 mg close to bedtime can disturb sleep in some adults. Logging caffeine gives you a real number instead of a guess.

Alcohol is logged the same way, without commentary. FORM records what you drank and moves on. Note that a “standard drink” differs by country: 14 g of pure alcohol in the US, 8 g in a UK unit. Alcohol also carries energy, about 7 kcal per gram.

How drinks move the Health Score

The daily Health Score is calculated by fixed rules. Water raises it. Caffeine and alcohol lower it. That isn’t a verdict on coffee or a glass of wine. Both can affect sleep, and sleep sits in the same score. Because the score weights the last 14 days, with recent days counting most, one evening out moves it a little and a pattern moves it more.

Drinks also sit next to the rest of the day. If you fast, water during the fast counts the same, and the fasting tracker runs alongside it. Sleep from a watch that syncs to Apple Health or Health Connect lands on the same date, so a late coffee and a short night show up side by side in the sleep tracker.

Honest limits

A water tracker only knows what you log. FORM doesn’t measure hydration, sweat or electrolytes. The reference values above are for healthy adults. If you have kidney, heart or liver disease, or your doctor has set a fluid limit, follow that instead.

FAQ