- Product:
- SteriPEN Water Purifier (company site, Amazon
)
- What's Good:
- Purification Speed, Common Battery Type, Idea, No Taste
- What's Bad:
- Heavy, Water Needs to be Clear, Single Liter Treatment Only
In the comments of a water purifier review I made a while ago a reader mentioned the SteriPEN. The SteriPEN is a water purifier that completes its task using UV light. This sounded too cool to pass up so I decided to review the device. After a spring, summer, and fall of very mixed use I’ve been able to figure out where, in my arsenal of gear, this purifier fits.
The SteriPEN’s concept is really neat. By zapping your water with UV light you kill everything in it.
To quote the user manual:
“SteriPEN? uses short wave germicidal UV light to disinfect water. This range of UV light destroys the DNA within bacteria, viruses and protozoa,rendering them unable to reproduce and therefore, harmless. UV treatment is a proven and long-accepted method for disinfecting drinking water.”
The device uses a dosage of UV light that is big enough to kill everything in your water but not big enough to hurt the human using it. The device is roughly the size of a medium sized flashlight (with a pointed tip) and is quite comfortable to hold and use. It is well built and rugged and I haven’t had any problems with it thus far.
The SteriPEN uses 4 AA batteries. While I applaud the designers for choosing a common battery type the four batteries add a lot of weight to the device. It would be nice to see them cut down the weight of the device with the batteries in it. According to SteriPEN your normal off the shelf Alkaline AA’s will give you 20-30 half liter doses, Lithium 130, and NiMH 150. Not great for the Alkalines but otherwise decent performance with the other battery types.
Using the SteriPEN is quite easy. Fill up your water bottle, press the button once or twice (once for half a liter, twice for a full liter), put the glass end of the device in the water, and swirl. When the light turns green (flashing or steady depending on dose) your water is safe to drink! From what I’ve seen this is by far the fastest way to treat a liter of water in the field.
One of the biggest struggles for water purifiers is taste. By using UV light the SteriPEN can boast absolutely no change in taste. This is quite an advantage over chemical based treatments.
One of the few drawbacks of the SteriPEN is that the water you treat must already be clear. To get around this the company also sells a filter that screws onto a full sized Nalgene (1 liter). The filter is quite handy and works well. But this adds even more weight to the SteriPEN’s total package.
Aside from being a little heavy, the two largest issues I have found with the SteriPEN are the time it takes to treat more than one dose, and its inability to treat more than 1 liter at a time. For each liter you treat it takes approximately 90 seconds of work (stirring the bottle). In one situation this summer I was treating water on a hiking trip for three people. Each person was using a multi liter hydration system. It would take us approximate 15 minutes of stirring and transferring from a Nalgene to the water bladders each time we wanted to water up. Mind you the water was immediately ready to drink after that 15 minutes. Immediate water consumption is not often a huge concern though.
My SteriPEN has treated tap water in Peru, river water in the Amazon Basin, stream water in Maine, and countless streams in Newfoundland. Not once in any of these situations did I become sick from consuming contaminated water. So from all I can tell the device does in fact treat the water as it claims to.
It’s taken me a while to figure out where and when the SteriPEN goes in my pack. I found the device very useful traveling and treating clear tap water. I was able to save a few bucks on buying bottled water and it only took a few minutes a day to treat what I needed. I’ve also found the SteriPEN to be very useful on day hikes. On day hikes the extra weight is not really a big deal and the ability to drink treated water in less than two minutes is a definite advantage over other treatment options. The SteriPEN didn’t make the cut for me on long multi-day backpacking trips. The extra weight and its inability to treat multiple liters at once make it not as attractive as my MIOX for those long trips in the back country.
Overall the SteriPEN is a great purifier for day hikes and traveling but not well suited for long backpacking trips.
Buy this product from Amazon
Comments
Tristan - October 25, 2005 6:41 PM
My dad found a similar device at a trade show that does the whole process in it's own 1 liter bottle. It's probably more weight than this even, but for us, great for day hikes. It also has a built in flashlight for kicks. If I find it I'll post a link.
Joe Kuster - March 20, 2006 2:17 PM
The other device that uses UV light to purify water is the AquaStar unit. To my knowledge it and the Steri-pen are the only two devices advertised for the hiking/camping crowd for UV purification. www.aquastar.com
I decided to try out the AquaStar Plus unit after comparing it for my needs vs the Miox and the Steripen. I think the Aquastar has a leg up on the Steripen in that it is lighter, multipurpose (Lantern like feature) and significantly cheaper with slightly faster cycle time. I also like the fact that it screws onto any normal nalgene bottle.
It still has most of the same advantages and disadvantages of the Steripen when compared to the Miox though. Despite being lighter than the Steripen the Miox is really light and very suitable for larger quantities of water.
For my use though I love the idea of immediate drinking, I hike along a lot of streams so I can continually re-fill throughout the day avoiding carrying too much weight during the day and the every so unpopular evening runs for water.
Colin Perry - May 5, 2007 1:37 PM
Just a quick note on Joe's comment... the website he meant to cite is in fact http://www.uvaquastar.com
Can't really comment on relative virtues as I'm only now starting on the road to evaluate a Steripen and a Waterworks EX for travelling (rather than hiking/trekking) in 'unsafe' places. But great reviews to help get me this far, so thanks.
Don Mitchell - June 30, 2007 1:41 PM
I am currently living in Colombia. Some friends brought one down for travelling here and left it with me. I just finished some travelling and found the steripen useful for treating potentially suspect city tap water and avoiding buying bottled water along with contributing to the dispsoable plastic bottle issue. One disadvantage, that I have not seen in any reviews ,is that you are up a dirty creek without teatment if that glass cylinder happens to get broken. I will be doing some backpacking soon and am "on the fence" with relying on it soley as a purification system and will probably bring iodine and, of course, an extra set of batteries, to back it up.
kelly crichton - September 5, 2007 2:48 PM
Hi
Has anyone used the Steripen in India...and if so, what was the result. Would also like to know if anyone has used the new Steripen solar charging unit which is supposed to be much lighter.
TonyC - September 12, 2007 9:58 PM
This review keeps talking about how the SteriPEN is too heavy, but the reviewer never bothers to post how much it weighs...glaring omission. It's an informative review besides that.
Larry - December 11, 2007 1:55 PM
Average weight is 8 oz. with alkaline batteries and 6.4 oz. with lithium batteries; weight empty is 3.7 ounces
Palak D - March 1, 2008 1:06 PM
finya [1:55 PM November 6, 2007]
I need to order small quanity drugs Provigil withto my uncle today. Provigil will the best for loosing your hair drugs on the market
are you retarded? provigil is an alertness medication, to keep you awake..and stop spamming
btw..I use the steripen..but never alone, I consider myself a luxurious backpacker and would not like to take any chances.
I filter the water through my MSRI ceramic filter, and then use the UV pen. The ceramic filter only takes out bacteria..not viruses...so this is the most effective method for me
Gaboury - March 20, 2008 10:23 PM
There's now a Seripen Traveler that weighs just 3.6 oz (105 g)including 2 lithium batteries.
Gaboury - March 20, 2008 10:24 PM
oops! That's Steripen, of course.
L - December 18, 2008 3:49 PM
Here's a good review of the Adventurer/Traveler version, as well as the original Steripen:
http://www.thetravelinsider.info/travelaccessories/steripentraveler.htm
Emilie - May 21, 2010 8:35 PM
I was absolutely wrapped with this device for a the first couple of hikes/trips I did with it, but unfortunately I dont think they are reliable yet. My first steripen took started to malfunction early during an extended trip through Morocco. The company was good about sending a replacement unit, but the delay cost us a fortune in bottled water.
The replacement unit I was super careful with, in case the last malfuction was my fault somehow. But it failed as well partway through a lengthy desert walk in Australia, and left me begging for purification tablets from fellow hikers, and eventually drinking unprotected water. Fail, in my humble opinion, until they can make them more robust. I emailed my 2nd disappointment to the company, but they no longer seemed interested in replying.