Indian Startup Create Smart Bats to Help Cricketers Up Their Game

The miniature device is attached to the top of bat and transmits data to the app via Bluetooth.

Speculur’s BatSense could be the smart bat solution for budding cricketers. (Photo: The Quint)

Cricket is a sport that flirts with religion status in India. When the national cricket team wins, the whole country erupts in jubilation, and when they lose, the anger feels as if it is personal.

The future of sports is heavily dependent on technology, which has become evident with use of LED light-based bails that are quite helpful to umpires in making calls.

Now, with help from startups like Speculur, the country’s budding crop of batsmen can look to take their game to new heights.

Speculur has partnered with Intel to design and manufacture BatSense, which helps batsmen analyse their bat speed, the bat swing trajectory, and whether they are timing the ball well.

For now, Speculur has provided the BatSense to few batsmen playing at the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy 2017 in England. And later this year, the product will be commercially sold in the country for around Rs 9,000, or $150 globally.

BatSense is powered by Intel’s Curie wearable computing module that can be fixed at the top of the bat handle. With a weight of 25 grams, Speculur and Intel have made sure that the module doesn’t add to the overall weight of the bat, as per the regulations.

BatSense works in sync with an app, ensuring you don’t need heavy computing machinery to derive the numbers that are recorded by the device.

This is where the BatSense gets fixed on the bat. (Photo: The Quint)

Any batsmen using their willow with BatSense will be able to analyse their movements, and track their bat speed, which is immediately transmitted to the bundled app being monitored by the coach.

BatSense works via Bluetooth and is only capable of lasting through a day’s use for now. But Speculur is working to make sure the device can last through a test match (5-day) as well.

This is the device that works its magic for batsmen. (Photo: The Quint)

Other than BatSense, Speculur is also keen on extending its support for the game by designing smart devices for other parts of the bat, or even somehow managing to plant a chip on the ball.

(This author was invited to England by Intel India to experience their latest products.)