April 27, 2005 What the world really needs is another watercooler – that’s what we thought when we came across the waterlogic stand at a recent design show. It was kinda lucky that our eagle-eyed reporter was thirsty because when we sampled the water , it was sparkling – with those tiny bubbles you get in Italian bottled “gassosso” mineral waters. Cool? Absolutely, but it also does hot water and you can have it with or without bubbles. Whatsmore, unlike bottled water coolers, this machine purifies the water at the point of use, meaning it hooks to mains water and does away with bottle deliveries, storage and changing bottles. Which in turn makes it cheaper too!
Apart from the fantastic option of having an unlimited supply of sparkling water, the biggest selling feature is that it’s a viable alternative to a bottled water cooler.
So let’s be clear – this cooler hooks straight to the mains water and electricity supplies. It does not contain water from mountain streams or mineral spas or anything fancy like that. It purifies the water inside – at the point of delivery.
We’re not going to buy into the pros and cons of sanitising water. Waterlogic claims a large percentage of bottled water is simply sterilised tap water but whether that applies to you and your office/home is something for you to find out. The company also claims that bottled water can stagnate and bacteria can grow in the bottles during storage and transport.
While we’ve never heard of anyone getting sick drinking from any office water cooler, we can see the sound water sterilisation and purification system and they have all the research you can eat to prove that it works. So we don’t think purity of the water is an issue – it’s really whether you want mineral water or not.
We can definitely see the logic in getting rid of the supply chain that comes with bottled water coolers on the grounds that it’s a more efficient way of doing things and will inevitably be cheaper in the long term without the never-ending need for trucks, humans, inventory control, storage and billing systems and manual labour.
The water logic range offers an array of different features – we liked the top-of-the-range WL3000 which comes as a table top or free standing unit with base cabinet.
Prices vary depending on the market, and whether you rent or buy and how much carbon dioxide you use in creating the mineral water (that’s the main cost of running).
For us, well, we’re right into the bubbles, which is apparently a choice which is quite different in some countries – the UK and Australia apparently are heavily centred around still water coolers, while more than 90% of Waterlogic machines sold in Germany and Italy have the sparkling option.
Find your local distributor here.
