Beauty and makeup company L’Oreal has introduced UV Sense, a new wearable UV sensor that can be stuck on your nail. The batteryless device measures UV exposure, which you can monitor through a companion app on your smartphone running iOS or Android.
Although, UV sense is the company’s smallest battery-free wearable, it isn’t L’Oreal’s first device to measure UV exposure. Back in 2016, L’Oreal marketed My UV Patch under the La Roche-Posay brand, which looked like a temporary tattoo.
As people are supposed to wear the device 24/7, it has to look good and feel comfortable. So, L’Oréal Technology Incubator’s Global Vice President, Guive Balooch brought back Swiss designer and Fuseproject founder, Yves Béhar, who designed the original My UV Patch.
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“The original UV Patch was an incredible feat in technology, however it was strongly lacking a design component,” Béhar told Digital Trends. “The product was unnecessarily large, and was being presented as a novelty item. If you’re asking someone to wear a product 24/7, it should be comfortable, beautiful, fit [into] their personal style, and provide necessary insights into our daily [lives].”
Here’s how it works
The UV Sense is very simple to use. All you have to do is stick it on our nail using an adhesive that comes in the package, swipe it over your phone, and it will wirelessly transmit UV exposure data to the companion app using near-field communication (NFC). The NFC chip is also responsible for charging the device through the data transfer process.
UV Sense itself strictly measures UV exposure. The app is where you can find additional info like allergens, pollution and other factors in the environment that can affect your skin.
You can reapply it using additional adhesive. Once you place it on your thumbnail it exposes the UV Sense to optimal sunlight, and the sensor is activated by UVA and UVB rays. Along with your UV report, you also get advice on avoiding the sun, and recommendations on L’Oreal products to purchase.
L’Oreal claims the data the sensor collects is accurate.
“People would wear the sensor and then we’d have a clunky expensive detector that was right next to it, and [we’d] test the data to make sure we’re really measuring the UV correctly,” Balooch said. “It’s very important to us [and] it’s something we really need to be accurate on.”
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Launching
L’Oreal will launch UV Sense in the U.S. this summer as a pilot program. The company will work along with dermatologists and consumers to do testing, which will allow the company to get even more feedback to enhance the experience even more. L’Oreal plans worldwide launching of the product in 2019 when it’ll be marketed under the La Roche-Posay brand.
