Other approaches
The rest of the water aisle.
Beyond filtration there is a whole aisle of machines and additives that promise to alter and improve drinking water. We sell mineral chemistry, which you should factor in. We have also researched water chemistry and water physics deeply enough to have a view. Some of these have no support at all. One or two have real science behind them, and real limits. Our take:
Magnetized watermixed evidence
There is more literature here than skeptics allow. Magnetic treatment of irrigation and livestock water has been studied for decades, and reviews report gains in yield, biomass and nutrient uptake across a range of crops — with the largest effects on brackish, saline or otherwise poor-quality water, which is the interesting part. The caveats are equally real: the mechanism is not established, results vary between studies, and these reviews are narrative rather than systematic, so null results are underrepresented. What we have not seen is evidence that a magnetic field durably changes drinking water in a way any standard method can measure. Promising in a field. Unsupported on a countertop.
Far-infrared, “energized” and ionizing devices
Two different things get sold under this heading, and they deserve different answers.
The passive add-ons — far-infrared and tourmaline balls, mineral cartridges sold as “energizers,” and the scalar, quantum and frequency-imprinted plates, discs and stickers — are frequently bundled onto otherwise reasonable gravity systems. The filter media in those systems may be perfectly good. The attachment is sold on a story rather than a result, and we have found nothing measurable by a standard method behind any of it.
Electrolysis ionizers are a real device, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Passing a current through water genuinely splits the stream, raises the pH on one side and drives the oxidation-reduction potential negative. Those are measurable changes. The question is what they are worth — and the most authoritative answer comes from researchers who are friendly to this chemistry. A 2022 review of electrolyzed-reduced water concluded that dissolved molecular hydrogen is “the exclusive agent responsible” for the effects, that the alkaline property “will not meaningfully influence the pH of the body,” and that the negative ORP reading is fully explained by dissolved H₂ and pH, so that “no additional enigmatic explanations such as ‘free electrons’ or ‘stored energy’ are required.” So an ionizer is best understood as a hydrogen-water machine, and its other two claims are answered in the cards below.
“Structured” or “coherent” water
Coherence is not a defined property in water chemistry, and there is no accepted method for measuring it. We used this language ourselves in early materials and removed it, because we would rather name a mechanism than a mood. We are not going to lump every product here together, though: Analemma, the best known of them, publishes its own research including a microbiome study, and we have seen no independent replication in either direction. What we can say is that it treats water a vessel at a time, which is not a scale anyone runs a household on. Whether it adds anything on top of mineral chemistry, we have no idea.
Vortexed water
There is a long tradition here, going back to Viktor Schauberger, and the people in it have spent decades watching water move and are genuinely attached to what they see. We are not going to wave that away. What we can tell you is what we found when we looked: nothing published in the independent literature on vortexing drinking water. It is also worth knowing that several products sold as vortex devices contain magnets as well, which makes it hard to attribute any reported result to the vortex itself. This is an approach to water physics rather than water chemistry, which is a different question from the one we work on. We are intrigued, and we would like to see the data.
Alkaline water
The central claim — that drinking high-pH water alkalizes the body — does not survive contact with the stomach, which restores its own acidity by secreting more acid, or with the blood, which is held between pH 7.35 and 7.45 whatever you drink. A 2026 clinical review concluded that claims of systemic alkalinization, enhanced immunity and disease prevention are not supported by robust evidence, and that any modest effects are “likely driven more by mineral composition than pH alone.” Which is the part worth keeping: what is dissolved in water matters. Its pH number, by itself, does not.
Hydrogen waterreal mechanism, real limits
This one is not in the same category, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Dissolved molecular hydrogen has a plausible mechanism as a selective antioxidant, and there is a genuine literature behind it: a 2023 review counted 81 clinical trials. But that literature is early and inconsistent — a 178-patient Parkinson’s trial found no benefit after smaller studies had. And the physical limits are real. Hydrogen’s solubility in water is about 1.57 mg/L at ordinary pressure and temperature, so a therapeutic dose means drinking litres a day. It is also the smallest molecule there is: it begins leaving the moment a container is opened, and diffuses through most plastics, so the concentration in an open flask falls from the moment it is opened. Interesting chemistry. Not a durable property of your drinking water, and not something that scales.
Unqualified micron claims
“Filters to 0.2 microns” describes a pore, not a result. It tells you what the filter physically blocks and nothing at all about dissolved chemistry, which is where most of the contaminants people worry about actually live.
The test we try to apply to ourselves is simple. Can independent laboratories measure the intervention’s effects using validated methods? If not, it does not yet belong on a label — including ours.