// THE VERGE — SALUTE
The UV-tracking Gem made me rethink how sunlight affects my health, not just my appearance
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What started as a test to understand how sun exposure was aging my skin took a turn that I wasn’t expecting.
What started as a test to understand how sun exposure was aging my skin took a turn that I wasn’t expecting.
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With temperatures rising to the 90s in Los Angeles, avoiding the heat wasn’t exactly an option while I was at a relative’s outdoor party in August. So I sat beneath a patio umbrella with a powerful fan nearby, figuring I was protected from the sun and heat. Half an hour later, I felt exhausted, dizzy, nauseous, and generally unwell, symptoms consistent with heat exhaustion.
Around the same time, I received a notification from an app used by the $249 ($149 at the time of publication) UV-tracking necklace I’d been wearing, called Gem, from a company called The90. It warned that my UV exposure had climbed considerably. It turns out UV radiation wasn’t repelled by this patio umbrella, and it’s hard to ever be fully protected because radiation can be reflected or scattered by objects in the environment. While UV exposure and overheating are different things, I’d mistakenly assumed the shade and the fan would adequately protect me from both.
This led to a discovery: One of my medications increases my sensitivity to heat, which helped to explain similar episodes I’d experienced over the years. The Gem didn’t diagnose anything, but it prompted me to investigate something I might otherwise have dismissed. Since then, I’ve been more mindful about limiting time outdoors during hours of peak heat and UV, staying hydrated, and paying closer attention to how I’m feeling outside.