Prominent cosmetics maker L’Oréal has made an appearance at CES 2018 to promote and showcase a new, technology-driven iteration in its My UV Patch family of wearables, which it calls UV Sense. For those who may not already be aware, My UV Patch is an ongoing project for L’Oréal, first released in 2016 under its La Roche-Posay branding. That original product was a stretchable skin-borne sensor which helped its wearer keep tabs on their exposure to the UV radiation put out by the sun. However, UV Sense is an update well beyond the features of the original and may just be the company’s first real steps into what most people would recognize as wearable technology.
Like the My UV Patch, the new patch doesn’t require a battery or charging to run. Instead, two-millimeter thick, nine-millimeter wide UV Sense gets its power via the very UVA and UVB rays it’s been built to measure and analyze. By being attachable to a user’s thumbnail using an adhesive provided in the box, the new device can not only be worn for weeks instead of days. It also receives the optimal amount of sunlight to keep it powered. Meanwhile, the box also provides a download link to an app that’s meant to be used with the wearable – with connectivity happening thanks to the UV Sense’s onboard NFC chip. The application will use collected data to both provide metrics to wearers about their sun exposure and to present them with information about the harm that can be caused by too much exposure. Beyond that, they’ll be presented with advice on how to limit exposure to those harmful rays of radiation.
In the meantime, L’Oréal says that its UV awareness campaign has already been highly successful. Since it first released its My UV Patch, the company says that as many as 34-percent of wearers have gotten into the habit of applying sunscreen more frequently and a further 37-percent report trying to spend more time in the shade. Unfortunately, for fans of My UV Patch in other regions who may want to check out the newest update, UV Sense won’t see a global launch until the following year.