Get Your Personalised Sun Safety Advice With This

Managing our exposure to the sun can be a delicate balancing act. Too little and you deprive your body of all-important vitamin D, too much and you invite health risks that include skin damage at best and skin cancer at worst. QSun is a clever tracker that’s designed to remove the guesswork by keeping tabs on sun exposure, even giving you a buzz when it’s time to head for the shade.

We’ve seen a number of devices designed to track UV exposure over the years, largely taking the form of bracelets, but also treated papers and thumbnail-sized discs. QSun promises to take things further, however, by analyzing the user’s skin type and their environmental situation to offer personalized sun safety advice.

This is handled through the companion smartphone app, which analyzes skin tones through the device’s camera and image processing software. It then offers personalized sunscreen advice based on your size and the clothes you are wearing, suggesting how much to apply first up and alerting you when it is time to apply again.

The circular QSun device itself measures one inch in diameter and can be clipped onto your hat, clothes or anything else that is facing the sun. Shaking it twice turns it on and sees it immediately check the UV intensity, and another shake lets it know you’ve applied sunscreen. From there, the device vibrates and its LEDs light up when you’re about to get sunburned and its time to head for the shade or reapply sunscreen. If you’ve got your phone with you, you’ll also receive a notification.

The QSun tracker is powered by a coin cell battery that should be good for six weeks use, and syncs with smartphones over Bluetooth LE. It is currently the subject of a Kickstarter campaign, where early pledges of CA$64 (US$50) will have one shipped your way in July 2018 if all goes to plan. You can check out the pitch video below.

QSun UV tracker analyzes skin tones for personalized sun safety advice [New Atlas]