WaterBear is a tiny but powerful cleaning tool for every lens and screen

Most of us have at least one lens cleaning cloth in each camera bag. Or if you really like experimenting, perhaps you clean your lenses with soot. But guys from KUVRD have come up with a pretty neat solution.

Meet WaterBear: a tiny, yet durable, versatile, and efficient cleaning tool for your lenses. You can always have it with you and clean not only your camera lenses but also screens and monitors on all your devices.

If KUVRD rings a bell, it’s a brand behind these universal waterproof lens caps. Their new product WaterBear was inspired by an extremely durable, but also extremely adorable micro-animal named tardigrade, also known as “water bear” or “moss piglet.”

The name is suitable, in my opinion, as these little lens cleaners are also both durable and adorable. They come in two sizes I’d describe as “small” and “even smaller,” but they’re more than enough to wipe your entire lens, phone, or even laptop screen multiple times. They were designed to stick to any surface or device, so you can always have them around when you need them.

The cleaning surface of WaterBear cleaners is made of a “chamois, nano-carbon-active polyamide synthetic tri-blend material with omnidirectional fiber loops.” In simpler terms, it’s an efficient and durable material that will clean any glass surface without scratching. The back is made from silicone adhesive gel so it sticks to any device, camera, or lens. When a patch loses its stickiness, you can simply rinse it with water and air dry it to restore its sticky texture, as well as cleaning abilities.

WaterBear has been launched on Kickstarter and it’s the brand’s fifths successful campaign. I’m not surprised that it has already been funded, as I absolutely love the concept. At the moment of writing this, $29,743 USD have been collected and the goal was $2,500. And there’s over a month to go!

If you’d like your set of WaterBear cleaners, you can preorder them via Kickstarter. A single set of six patches (two big and four small ones) costs $15, and you can get one set for free if you join KUVRD’s social media campaign. There are several larger sets available as well, and all of them will start shipping worldwide around July this year.