English football club Manchester City wants to know how its fans are really feeling, and it has gone so far as to launch the Connected Scarf, a smart scarf stuffed with sensors that the organization says can measure fans’ emotions.
According to Manchester City’s scarf page, the club has so far tested the accessory with six fans and recorded “over 120 highlights in 90 minutes of play”.
“Scarf records a range of physiological indicators, including heart rate, body temperature and emotional arousal, which gives us concrete information to analyze how fans feel at different points in the match,” the page says.
Ultimately, the club plans to use the collected data to create “curated, personalized experiences,”though it did not specify what those experiences would be.
The Manchester City scarf uses the EmotiBit wearable sensor module and has many of the same sensors found in fitness trackers, The Verge notes today. There is a temperature sensor, a PPG (photoplethysmography) sensor for tracking heart rate and an accelerometer. There’s also an EDA (electrodermal activity) sensor that is supposed to detect stress by measuring changes in sweat levels (this is the same technology that FitBit Sense smartwatches introduced to consumer wearables).
Despite using some of the same technology found in more mainstream wearables, the Connected Scarf feels different because the data isn’t intended for the user. Instead, the only obvious beneficiaries are your favorite football club and Cisco, which teamed up to make the scarf. Sports marketing agency Octagon UK and technology and manufacturing company Unit9 are also involved in the scarf project, according to Reuters. Manchester City have not yet specified how it will address privacy concerns once the smart scarf exits its experimental phase, or how much data can be shared with its partners.
“We’re looking to better understand and measure the ups and downs of football fans and how the game impacts fans not only emotionally but also physically,”Ashley Marusak, Cisco’s global sports marketing manager, told Reuters.
Manchester City are planning to make The Connected Scarf available to a “selected number”of Manchester City and sister club New York City fans next season, Reuters reported.
Manchester City did not share other product details, including how the scarves will be distributed or fed. Since the scarf is still being tested, plans may change before we see it on sale.