# Seasoned Pro's advice on water tracking **URL:** \ **Category:** Newbee\ **Created:** [September 7, 2026, 9:07am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/seasoned-pros-advice-on-water-tracking/12833 "2026-09-07T09:07:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![baronvonchickenpants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d26b3c/32.png) [@baronvonchickenpants](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/baronvonchickenpants)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2026, 9:07am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/seasoned-pros-advice-on-water-tracking/12833/1 "2026-09-07T09:07:57Z")
Hi all, Before I blunder in and make a mess of my new goal I thought I’d quicky ask if any of you Beeminder experts have some advice. Looking to start Beeminding water intake. Firstly, since this is a Daily thing I don’t want to be able to get ahead of myself. If I drink ‘too much’ today I don’t want that to mean it will allow me to drink less tomorrow. I am only on the free plan so I don’t believe I have access to the auto-ratchet system. Secondly, are there any useful Android water apps that integrate with Beeminder directly that people would recommend. ---
**Author:** ![jolly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/db5fbb/32.png) [@jolly](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/jolly)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2026, 10:25pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/seasoned-pros-advice-on-water-tracking/12833/2 "2026-09-07T22:25:43Z")
I do a bunch of fancy water tracking/alerting with a combo of home assistant + beeminder + lutron pico buttons. (and google home and others for reminders) Ie I push a physical button, it logs the drink, and based on how much ive drank that day it starts sending me voice/and other reminders periodically to make sure i drink more water. It’s incredibly useful to make me actually drink enough water in a day. Beeminder side - you want sum for the aggregation parameter. I just set my goals to be public - [water – jolly – beeminder](https://www.beeminder.com/jolly/water) shows witht he actual standard yellow brick road [water2 – jolly – beeminder](https://www.beeminder.com/jolly/water2) its a per day log. you can see when ive got teh goal properly setup and enabled i drink a ton of water, if i dont have my alerts then i end up drinking way less 😕 buuuut the easiest way to get started - just use the android beeminder app, enter in oz (or glasses) when you drink water. ps - i think the fitbit integration could also be used. ---
**Author:** ![alys](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/alys/32/4726_2.png) [@alys](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/alys)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 5:45am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/seasoned-pros-advice-on-water-tracking/12833/3 "2026-09-08T05:45:37Z")
> [@baronvonchickenpants](#): > > since this is a Daily thing I don’t want to be able to get ahead of myself. If I drink ‘too much’ today I don’t want that to mean it will allow me to drink less tomorrow. Depending on what your daily goal is, it may be beneficial to let yourself build up a buffer so you can drink less on a future day. I have medical advice to drink 2 litres of water a day. If I know that tomorrow’s plans mean I won’t be able to take toilet breaks often enough, then I will drink more today so that I can drink less tomorrow. That’s necessary from a practical perspective and it doesn’t have any meaningful health impact (from a long-term perspective, drinking 2.5 litres today and 1.5 litres tomorrow is not significantly different than 2 litres on each day). If my daily goal was only small, for example, 500 ml per day, then I might consider not allowing myself to build up buffer. If you’re certain that you want to enforce drinking the full amount every day without the auto-ratcheting feature, then you may want to consider having a binary goal where you enter 1 for “did drink at least the full amount” or 0 for “did not drink the full amount”. However that would mean that you couldn’t use the goal for tracking your exact consumption during the day. ---
**Author:** ![skorytnicki](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/skorytnicki/32/4204_2.png) [@skorytnicki](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/skorytnicki)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 6:44am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/seasoned-pros-advice-on-water-tracking/12833/4 "2026-09-08T06:44:59Z")
> [@jolly](#): > > Ie I push a physical button, it logs the drink, and based on how much ive drank that day it starts sending me voice/and other reminders periodically to make sure i drink more water. It’s incredibly useful to make me actually drink enough water in a day. How did you build the physical button? What standard did you use, ZigBee? ---
**Author:** ![baronvonchickenpants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d26b3c/32.png) [@baronvonchickenpants](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/baronvonchickenpants)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 9:32am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/seasoned-pros-advice-on-water-tracking/12833/5 "2026-09-08T09:32:44Z")
This is a good point, I think I’ll relax that rule for myself a little.