A Butterfly with a Superpower

Deep in the forests of a remote Indonesian island lives the Buru opalescent butterfly — one of the few creatures on earth capable of seeing ultraviolet light. Normally an intense gold, it appears iridescent blue-green in sunlight, like an opal. Nearly eight inches across. Elevated, Extraordinary.

It sees the sun differently than we do.

When we went looking to name our device that makes invisible UV visible, we discovered this miraculous butterfly. A bit of creative license modified 'Buru' to name our stealthy villian—UV—and BURŪV was born.

Dr. Brian Mattyhs Family of four outdoors in a park setting

A Doctor with his own vision

Brian Matthys didn't start his career fighting sun exposure in a clinic, but at a pool.

As a lifeguard, he learned to read the sun before he had the medical training to validate it. He watched it redden skin in real time. He noticed the changes to pool guests over the Summer and over the years.

Today, Dr. Matthys is a board-certified dermatologist and Mohs surgeon, having seen over 100,000 patients and performed more than 15,000 skin cancer surgeries.

He spent 25 years telling patients to wear sunscreen and watching them spend fortunes fixing damage that had started decades earlier.

The problem, he says, is that he couldn't give patients proof that their sunscreen was working or a warning when it wasn't.

And so he built BURŪV.

Close-up of the Sun with a black background

The problem wasn't motivation. It was visibility.

In 1850, Ignaz Semmelweis knew that handwashing saved lives. He had no way to prove it in real time. Doctors kept not washing their hands. Patients kept dying.

We are at a similar inflection point with sun exposure.

The science has been settled for decades. We know that UV causes roughly 90% of the visible aging and skin damage that dermatologists treat every day.² We know that 80% of lifetime UV exposure is incidental —accumulated on ordinary days, during ordinary activities, by people who think thought they were being careful.

The measurement was the missing piece. Until now.

A 2024 study showed that UV-aware behavior can reduce common skin cancers by up to 95%.¹ The difference is knowing.

BURŪV makes the invisible risk of sun exposure visible, convenient, and clear. It delivers UV-aware behavior guidance from your wrist — so you can take action before your skin has to.

Built for the life you're already living.

  • A Smarter Band for Skin 'Fitness'

    BURŪV replaces your Apple Watch band with a smarter one. The patented TruSun™ sensor reads UV passively throughout your day. No extra device. No extra step. Nothing else to remember.

  • Personalized and specific guidance

    BURŪV considers your skin type, your location, your sunscreen and its typical behavior, your activities, and personal goals to deliver guidance tailored to you.

  • tech-forward utility made elegant

    Log sunscreen applications with a Siri shortcut. Schedule auto-reminders. The human inputs are intentionally simple. BURŪV does the hard math.

The goal was never zero effort. It was the right effort, perfectly timed, for your skin.

Healthy, beautiful skin for life.

That's more than a tagline. It's what 25 years of clinical practice showed was possible if people had the right information at the right time.

BURŪV exists because prevention more effective at preserving collagen than all the lotions and potions ever made, and more affordable than injectibles, peels, and chemo.

Once you see for yourself, you'll know.

Order BURŪV — $179 Founding Member Price

CITATIONS
¹ Kaplan et al., 2024
² Amaro-Ortiz et al., Molecules, 2014. doi:10.3390/molecules19056202