With skin cancer on the rise, sun safety is a serious business and L’Oreal is aiming to help customers lower their risk with a new wearable sensor, UV Sense.
Beauty giant L’Oreal has unveiled the world’s first battery-free wearable sensor designed to warn users about their levels of ultraviolet exposure and help them protect themselves from skin cancer.
The company made the announcement at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, explaining that the new sensor, UV Sense, builds on an earlier version from the company, My UV Patch, but is smaller, can be worn for longer and delivers real-time data.
The company reckons this predecessor had real impact that it now hopes to magnify with UV Sense. Consumer studies involving My UV Patch, it claims, showed that 34 percent of wearers applied sunscreen more often and 37 percent tried to stay in the shade more frequently.
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Small but effective
L’Oreal claims that UV Sense is the first battery-free wearable electronic sensor to measure individual exposure. It can store up to three months of data and show trends in exposure over time with instant updates. It’s just two millimeters thick and nine millimeters in diameter, so fits on a thumbnail, and can be worn for around two weeks, making it ideal for holidays.
UV Sense draws power from the user’s smartphone and is activated by UVA and UVB rays. Information is displayed via an iOS or Android App, which is fed by the sensor using near-field communications (NFC) technology.
“L’Oréal research shows that overexposure to UV rays is a top health and beauty concern of consumers worldwide,” said Guive Balooch, global vice president of L’Oréal’s Technology Incubator. “With this knowledge, we set out to create something that blends problem-solving technology with human-centered design to reach even more consumers who require additional information about their UV exposure.”
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