Camelbak’s Ongoing Quest For Wearable Hydration

Camelbak is probably the best known brand of hydration pack on the market today and has – especially since expanding into the military and emergency personnel market – become an industry leader when it comes to keeping yourself hydrated when on the move. Creative and innovative, Camelbak has been very aggressive about enhancing its products every year and designing more and more specialized packs for particular sports (running, cycling, motor spots, etc.) or for particular conditions (heat, cold, etc.). As a consequence, it is fairly safe to say that when it comes to active hydration Camelbak is probably one of the foremost authorities on the topic. So why can’t they get the wearable hydration going well?

Wearable hydration refers to a number of garments sold by Camelbak that have their own integrated hydration systems built in, thereby disposing of the pack altogether. The idea sounds great: a reservoir of water (or sports drink) built into your clothes and fully accessible completely hands free. However, to date none of Camelbak’s wearable hydration products has really taken the market by storm or revolutionized things the way the hydration packs did. At present, Camelbak offers three lines of wearable hydration: the RaceBak line, the VeloBak line and the ShredBak line, all of which are tops with integrated pockets that carry water and then transfer it to the user’s mouth using the same basic bit valve system used on most of their hydration packs.

Despite how good the idea sounds, the key difficulty seems to be one of comfort. Basically, in order for the garment to make any sense at all, it has to carry significant amount of water; however there really is no way to do so – at least to date – comfortably. The newest line – the VeloBak – carries 2.1 litres of water, but it is all concentrated in a rather awkward lump on the wearer’s back. Further, the weight of the water presses the back dramatically, making it much less comfortable than a separate hydration pack with a good ventilation system built into the harness. One of the things that seem to really annoy a lot of people that bought these shirts is that you really cannot tell how awkward they fit at the shop; instead, you only discover this after you have purchased the garment and filled it up with water.

Another problem with the wearable hydration idea is that there really is no way to insulate the water from the wearer without making the garment even more awkward. As a result, after a few hours the water is very close to body temperature, making it very unappealing to people engaged in thirsty work out in the heat. Again, this is not much of a problem with the separate hydration pack since the water is not directly in contact with the wearer and there is plenty of room to add state-of-the-art insulation to the pack. Again, at present there does not seem to be any real way to address this problem, but people just do not want hot water.