The smart necklace trying to track sun exposure

You’ve heard of smartwatches and smart rings, but now it’s time to add health-based smart necklaces to the inventory.

Meet The90 Gem. It’s a necklace with a sleek, black circular pendant packed with sensors that measure solar radiation.

The device is part of a growing wearables market that seeks to tap into health and wellness trends. The strategy consulting arm of Rock Health reported in June that 46% of US adults surveyed own at least one wearable that tracks health information, including sleep to heart rate data—think Apple Watches or Oura rings. That’s up from 13% in 2015. You may even be wearing one right now. (Did you close your rings yet?)

The Gem smart necklace was developed by Walnut Creek, California-based startup The90.

The necklace was created by co-founder and CEO Stacy Salvi as a way to track sun-related signs of aging and potentially help fend-off skin conditions.

When paired with an app, the smart necklace provides users with real-time data on exposure to UVA and UVB, types of solar radiation; it then give skin health recommendations, according to the company.

Within the app, users answer a 16-question survey on things like skin type, the medications they take, and sun-exposure habits. The company uses this data to assess the user’s skin and sun-exposure risk. It then gives personalized UV thresholds and sunscreen reminders.

“We let the user tell us the type of sunscreen that she’s put on, the SPF level and the application quality—was it light, medium, or heavy?” Salvi said. “That goes into a sunscreen decay algorithm that tells you whether you’re protected or not.”

Salvi said that The Gem is “really just the first foray into a bigger data story” about how much sun exposure is truly risky and what the health benefits provide in comparison.

“We wanted to make sure that we created something that people would want to wear” and that is different from other products, she said, as the wearable market is already “saturated” with rings and watches.

A necklace is worn closer to the face, which is a common sun-exposure zone. That makes this area more susceptible to show signs of sun-related aging and to develop skin cancer.

An estimated 9,500 people in the US are diagnosed with skin cancer each day, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.

Wearable market insights. Madelyn Knowles, research lead at Rock Health Advisory said via email that watches aren’t going anywhere and rings still have room to grow.

There are other necklace wearables, like Invisawear, but that is used for personal security in cases of emergency.

“There’s also room for more specialized form factors, though niche products have a smaller ceiling by definition,” she said. “What we are likely to see is more layering: a primary device like a watch or ring for daily basics, plus a second or third device for specific needs, like glucose monitoring.”

In the near term, Knowles said there will be more variety in the hardware of devices (like necklaces).

Longer term, she said, “hardware will commoditize and the winners will likely be decided by quality of insights and overall user experience, beyond the sensors themselves.”