Ray: The Smart UV Tracking Necklace

In November 2023, my partner Niru Vijayakrishnan and I built Ray for HackPrinceton, a hackathon hosted by Princeton University. This was my first ever hackathon, and I went into it with no expectations. I was honestly astounded by how much my peers were capable of and how much you can build when you focus on a single problem for 36 hours straight. I was completely exhausted by the end — but it was absolutely worth it, and I’m really excited to do more hackathons in the future.

Out of that weekend came Ray, a wearable technology project that combines fashion with healthcare.

Ray is a necklace integrated with a UV sensor capable of tracking UV radiation. Paired with a mobile app hosted using Blynk, it aims to help users better understand and manage their sun exposure in a more informed and personalized way.

Rather than only showing a raw UV number, the goal of Ray is to give users meaningful, contextual information about what that exposure actually means for their health.

Key Features

UV Monitoring
Continuous tracking of UV levels to provide both real-time and historical data through a chart and value display.

Harshness Index
Most existing UV monitoring solutions only display real-time UV values and do not account for how long a user has been exposed, or whether they are wearing sunscreen. Our solution uses machine learning to develop a Harshness Index that incorporates a temporal component (duration of exposure), the intensity of UV radiation, and user input about applied SPF. Based on this, it makes personalized suggestions to users to increase or decrease their sun exposure.

SPF Recommendations
An intelligent algorithm suggests suitable SPF protection based on the current UV index and the user-inputted SPF applied.

Skin Cancer Likelihood
Uses machine learning to estimate how much more or less likely a user is to develop skin cancer based on their historical raw UV exposure data.

Sun Intensity Alerts
Push notifications warn users when UV levels are high and advise them on protective measures.

User-Friendly App Interface
A simple, easy-to-navigate mobile interface for monitoring and managing sun exposure data.

Relevant links: Documentation