Hydro Photon SteriPEN Adventurer Handheld Ultraviolet Water Purifier

I hate this product for one reason only. Terrible support! My SteriPen died on me during my last camping trip. It just flickers and wont complete a full cycle. Changed the batteries, etc. I left 7 voicemails and have sent 4 emails to SteriPEN support....and still NOTHING. The company SUCKS and I wll never buy another product from them again. The sales dept and support are in different buildings, so calling sales for help is USELESS. STAY AWAY

The SteriPen does exactly what it says it will do, but the circumstances for it to work thoroughly need to be very controlled. Because the pen only works in a certain amount of water, you can only deal with that amount of water effectively. Well, if you're like most hikers, the amount of water you carry varies and you don't carry extra containers just to measure out the exact amount of water you need and you don't want to be restricted by the size of the container you bring. The prefilter kit which you can purchase with it leaked for me from nearly every angle and was worthless. So, the SteriPen works and does exactly what it says it will do, but it's a little more effort then I'd like to give. Personally, tablets and liquid water treatment are lighter, more versatile, smaller, and if I get the itch to add another filter, I can grab something else like the Frontier filter which is still smaller and lighter then the SteriPen...and it gives me an extra sense of security.

This device is money well spent. I recently purchased one after reading every review (user and university) on the internet. This device lives up to the substantial hype. In response to the prior reviewer, my own solution has been to treat water in a 1L Nalgene and then pour it into my 6L dromedary for transport. During use, the water is stirred ensuring all water clinging to the inside walls of the Nalgene are treated. Only clean water is then poured into the dromedary. When finished treating, I flush the Nalgene threads with a small amount of clean water from the dromedary - this can be accomplished if done carefully in my experience even when the Nalgene is full of that last liter of clean water. Two other tricks I've developed: First, pickup a nine dollar "joe2go?" coffee filter from the sporting goods store. It is a cup shaped metal filter with very small pores which screws into the Nalgene lid. I use it as a prefilter to remove "chunks" in water than is generally clear with the occasional pine needle or other debris. Secondly, I also have a headlamp which uses CR123 batteries (actually I use SF123 from sure-fire.com). When the batteries are low enough to reduce the output of my regulated LED headlamp to "low" I set them aside and use them in my Steripen later. Because the steripen will not "fire" if there is not enough energy to purify water properly it is safe and helps me use batteries in the most efficient manner possible. I've used this device on several trips, purified some VERY questionable (to the degree that there was almost no question about it, I knew it was bad) water and have not suffered any ill effects. The last trip in particular I found myself out after dark and with a few friends who were using an MSR pump. Being able to relax and kick back and "stir" after that absurdly long day and still be certain my water was safe (safer even than the pumped water) was a "seal the deal moment" for me. I would give up any item in my pack before this device, except maybe the pack itself and perhaps the map. Battery performance was better than advertised with surefire batteries and if there is any doubt in your mind just read the university reviews. This device is money.

While I have not personally used the Steripen, cleaning the contaminated bottle or bladder threads is a simple matter. As with the MIOX and other in bottle purification methods, detoxifying the threads is accomplished by "flushing" the contaminated threads with purified water. Simply take your bottle of purified water and loosen the threads on it (loose enough that water can come out but tight enough that the lid stays on), and invert the bottle such that the purified water flushes any contaminated water from the bottle threads.

So far this little pen has worked great for our outdoor program except for one thing about the idea of it. How do you fill up a container from a stream without contaminating the lip of the container? Other than that, works great.