The MODL water bottle is a unique 36oz solution to clean water on trail. It offers a modular set up so you can use it as a traditional bottle with a screw cap, but you can also convert it into a spout bottle, water bladder with drinking tube and even add a special cap to convert it into a ‘mini shower’. With a replaceable water filter inside, various modular attachment straps, compressible space saving when not in use and fully dishwasher safe this novel trail ‘water multi tool‘ is impressive whether you are thru-hiking or just out for the day on trail.
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Full Review
Until now I’ve presented a selection of possible ways to carry and purify water on trail, but this is the first product I’ve reviewed that brings the best of all options into one place.
Like all great products the MODL bottle started life as an idea on the Appalachian Trail 3 years ago and reached the trail as a product some 3 years later via a storming kickstarter campaign.
Squishy Bottle with a Cap at Both Ends
The 36oz bottle is made from a very tough and flexible silicone and has ‘life loops’ attached to both ends that allow you to easily karabiner the bottle to the exterior of backpacks. The fact that the bottle has a cap at both ends makes cleaning and drying much quicker and easier and the screw threads for the caps are a reassuringly strong looking metal so the whole unit can take a lot of abuse and still function.
This Water Multi Tool gives you safe clean water in a variety of configurations from a gentle walk to multi day Thru-Hiker. This made for trail by trail people designed kickstarter is exactly the kind of sturdy innovation that really shows how complacent the traditional retail outlets have been for years.
The bottle weighs a hefty 10 oz but its dishwasher safe and good for everything from freezing to boiling hot water. Their life loops made handling the bottle easy when it was piping hot.
The Filter MOD – 3000 Litres
The filter attaches to the inside of the bottle beneath the cap via a small clear tube. Once attached ( it has a flow direction marked on it) the filer will remove 99.9% of bacteria and protozoa. As always I strongly recommend finding the clearest and fastest flowing water possible but at a push this will clean up dirtier water but at the expense of the life of the filter.
The filter is good for 3000 Liters of pure water and I noticed no effort to drink through it. The filter unit is also replaceable and of course you can use the bottle without the filter inside if you are confident of your water sources.
If you avoid freezing and boiling water and make sure you align the unit in the right direction I would guess your typical weekend trail hiker would get years of use out of it.
The Flow MOD
The flow MOD attaches to the screw cap of the bottle and instantly transforms the MODL bottle into a water bladder with drinking tube allowing you to store the water out of the way in backpack and still drink on the go. The bite valve did a good job of not dripping water when not in use too.
At nearly 3ft long the tube is ridiculous overkill but this silences the critics and I wasn’t afraid to trim mine down a bit to suit the biggest pack I could think of.
The Go MOD and Rinse MOD
The Go MOD cap simply gives you a small drinking nozzle rather than having to take the entire cap off for a deep chug. The Rinse MOD is perhaps the most interesting because it makes the bottle into a ‘mini shower’. For me this is the least most useful feature given that I usually just wash myself in a stream, but if you need to handle food cooking at camp or want clean hands to put contact lenses in this might be the perfect way to wash your hands with confidence.
Lifeloops !
MODL are currently offering their Lifeloops as part of the package so you get strips of silicone that allow you to easily attach items to your pack.
My MODL complete package also came with a handy mesh bag to store all the various items in.
One final quirk of the silicone bottle is its squishability. If you keep the end caps slightly loose and squeeze out all the air then seal the caps you get a very compressed bottle that takes up very little space in your pack when its empty.
Gripes
I have a couple of very minor gripes . Firstly the non conventional width of the bottle means I cant stow it in a specific bottle pouch on most backpacks. I also found attaching the tubes slightly fiddly and would have preferred a more reassuring and easy quick release catch.
Closest Competitor
This is a tough question because there isnt really anyone close. For water purification in a flexible bottle the closest is the Katadyn BeFree system and for an inline water purification product the MSR Thru-Link is very similar.
Verdict
The MODL water bottle is a unique 36oz solution to clean water on trail. It offers a modular set up so you can use it as a traditional bottle with a screw cap, but you can also convert it into a spout bottle, water bladder with drinking tube and even add a special cap to convert it into a ‘mini shower’. With a replaceable water filter inside, various modular attachment straps, compressible space saving when not in use and fully dishwasher safe this novel trail ‘water multi tool‘ is impressive whether you are thru-hiking or just out for the day on trail.
PURCHASE $40About MODL
It was bitter cold in Appalachia as we hiked up a mountain in Panthertown, North Carolina, guided only by our headlamps and an ‘X’ on the map.
As we beat back the cold, wind and rain over the course of the weekend, we found our conversations looping back to an unexpected topic… the water bottle.
It was during this camping trip in November 2017 that we realized the potential for hydration gear that is more functional, versatile and packable. By the time we packed up and hiked out, the concept of the utility bottle had been born.
The next 18 months were spent designing, testing, and iterating. By the time we finished and launched on Kickstarter in April 2019, we had created MODL – shorthand for “modular bottle.”
Today, our mission has evolved to creating gear that empowers people to explore the outdoors in a more seamless and natural way. Nature holds billions of years of wisdom and we believe exploring the outdoors is a source of inspiration that brings us closer to truth of the natural world and the world we create.
