LAVIE hotel water-bottle system

 Photo later

That is a LAVIE hotel water-bottle system. It is a clever alternative to supplying disposable plastic bottles in hotel rooms.

In your photo there are three main pieces:

• The clear glass bottle on the left is the bottle you actually drink from. It has a bamboo screw cap.
• The black cylindrical unit on the right is the LAVIE water-treatment/purification unit. The glass bottle fits down inside it.
• The wooden base is essentially the docking/storage area, and the little illustrations printed on it show the operating sequence.

How you use it

Fill the glass bottle with cold tap water, screw the bamboo cap on, and place the filled bottle inside the black LAVIE cylinder.

The LAVIE system then treats the water using UV-A light combined with a photocatalytic process. Unlike a conventional filter, there isn’t a cartridge that physically strains contaminants out of the water. The light activates a catalytic surface inside the unit, producing highly reactive molecules that help break down chlorine-related compounds, odors, and various organic contaminants. The treatment also helps reduce microorganisms.

After the treatment cycle finishes, you remove the bottle and drink from it normally.

An interesting distinction

This isn’t quite the same thing as a reverse-osmosis purifier or a Brita-type filter. It doesn’t remove dissolved minerals from the water. That’s intentional. Calcium, magnesium and the normal mineral content of the local tap water remain.

So the idea is essentially:

French tap water → glass bottle → LAVIE treatment → better-tasting treated water, without disposable plastic bottles or replacement filter cartridges.

And that explains why your hotel has given you two matching bottles and the rather mysterious black sleeve. It is actually a small in-room water-treatment station, not simply a bottle holder.

The white object visible through the bottle on the left is your travel electrical adapter sitting behind it; that’s unrelated to the LAVIE system.