When you first get your hands on an Apple Watch, it’s perfectly natural to feel bogged down by all the features. I mean, the heart-tracking metrics alone make my head spin. When it comes to protecting your skin though, there’s a number hiding in the face of the Apple watch series 5 that dermatologists really, really want you to pay attention to: the UV index.
“The UV index is a measure of the strength of [ultraviolet] rays reaching the surface of the earth at a particular time and location,” Joshua Zeichner, MD, a New York City-based dermatologist, “The higher the UV index, the more powerful the UV rays are and the more likely our skin is to get sunburned.”
To find this metric in the wearable, under the Face Gallery tab of the Watch app and look for the little sun icon with a number floating somewhere around it (or, you can simply check the weather app). Once you know the number, consult the World Health organization (WHO) breakdown. It rates UV rays as follows: low (1-2), moderate (3-5), high (6-7), very high (8-10), and extreme (11 or more). Depending on the how high that number on your Apple Watch skyrockets, you’ll need to protect your largest organ in various different way (please see the cute chart above for details).