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The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) joins a technology transfer with Ambrane India Private Limited in order to mass manufacture and sell the haptic smartwatch for blind and visually impaired individuals.

The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, the national centre for flexible electronics, Siddhartha Panda and Viswaraj Srivastava developed the device.

The haptic smartwatch by IIT Kanpur includes 12 touch-sensitive hour features on the dial face that can be scanned with the fingers of the user. A vibration pulse is caused by touch on specific markers, a long vibration for an hour, and a short pulse indicating minutes.

The newly developed smartwatch is a fusion of tactile and vibration watches. The researchers at IIT Kanpur created the smartwatch to generate two pulses compared to current watches that are audio-based and lack privacy.

The complexity of a vibration watch causing more than 20 pulses has been decreased to 2 pulses, and the delicate nature of a tactile watch is also eliminated, thus resulting in a simple-to-use, affordable, private, and robust, read a press statement,

This haptic watch has super cool features indicating health, such as hydration reminders, heart rate, step count, and time. The centre for flexible electronics at IIT Kanpur has been functioning on more such technologies in the assistive field.

The technology licensing agreement between the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and Ambrane India was signed in the presence of Abhay Karandikar, IIT Kanpur Director; AR Harish IIT Kanpur Dean of research and development; Siddhartha Panda and Viswaraj Srivastava (developers); Ashok Rajpal, Director Ambrane India; Anuskh Sharma, PIC, innovation and incubation.

Upon signing the agreement, Director IIT Kanpur, Abhay Karandikar, said the development of the haptic smartwatch for the visually impaired and the blind is an extraordinary innovation from the team of Professor Siddhartha Panda and Mr. Vishwaraj Srivastava at NCFlexE, IIT Kanpur. We consider that this watch will make a significant social impact by helping the visually impaired and blind to use this technology for everyday usage. The developed watch will soon be commercialized by Ambrane India and will be available in the market at a reasonable price. This newly developed technological device is a testament to IIT Kanpur’s commitment to encouraging inclusivity through novel technology development. I’m confident that this innovation will make a significant impact on the national as well as international markets.