Manchester City is testing a scarf that can track fan’s emotions

England’s Manchester City soccer club has partnered with Cisco in testing a Connected Scarf, a “smart scarf” with sensors that can track fan emotions at different points during a match.

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“The Connected Scarf shows us just how deeply fans are impacted by the action on the field,” Manchester City said on its official page.

The Scarf through its EmotiBit bio sensor captures different bio-signals like heart rate, body temperature and emotional arousal during a match and allows us to shape a more curated, customised experience in the future, the soccer club added.

The English soccer club invited six of their lifelong fans to take part in a pilot program testing out the new innovation and captured over 120 moments of interest across the 90 minutes of a match.

Tracking fan’s emotions through IoT devices has been done in the past.

Platforms like the FanPlayIoT launched in 2020, partnered with Microsoft to track the real-time emotions of sports fans, through IoT devices and wearables.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 enables the platform to integrate with social media networks.

During the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020, the platform aimed to offer a seamless engagement experience for the fans of Chennai Super Kings (CSK).