How on earth did we come up with the concept of the Hot Spot? Sometimes we ask that same question ourselves! BBG Sports’ mission is to provide simple, visual, authentic technology in “real time.” In 2002 we began investigating infrared cameras as part of a separate project we were developing. We were already involved with the Nine Network Australia, providing another revolutionary product at the time : ball speeds. We investigated how we could integrate this amazing technology into a cricket match. This is when “Hotspot” was born. How does it Work? Infrared energy occurs in the Non-Visual spectrum. This means that the human eye CANNOT see anything in the Non-Visual spectrum and therefore requires the help of infrared cameras to see infrared energy. Infrared energy is most often represented via heat. This can be any form of heat, either occurring naturally, synthetically or through the contact of various objects causing friction. It’s this friction caused by ball hitting bat that makes Hot Spot THE most accurate edge detection device in cricket today. Advantages of Hot Spot over Microphone Edge Detection systems:- Independent testing has showed that balls bowled over 100 km/h can produce a ‘Phantom’ noise without touching the bat. A swishing sound of the ball going past the bat (without touching the bat) was indistinguishable from a real snick. - Hot Spot is not dependent on faulty or inaccurate microphones. - Hot Spot is not affected by low batteries used on radio microphones- Hot Spot is not affected by crowd noises surrounding the field.- Most importantly,Hot Spot is not affected by the distance the batsman is down the pitch when he hits or gloves the ball. On microphone edge detection systems, the further the sound is away from the microphone, the less likely that a sound will register. The clip below perfectly illustrates this point, as a microphone would not detect a faint edge off the gloves, 3 metres down the pitch.