Chennai: Wearing helmet in heat no longer annoying

Chennai: Sundararajan Krishnan, an alumnus of Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary School, travelled to the US for a master’s degree where he was inspired to find solutions to real-life problems. 

He returned to Chennai and founded AptENer Mechatronics, and invented a clip-on cooler for two-wheeler riders to beat the heat produced while wearing a helmet. 

Sundararajan and his team introduced BluSnap, a wearable cooler which can retrofit to the full-faced helmets, soon. “Technologically, an evaporative air cooler, it consumes less than one watt of power and is provided with a rechargeable 2500mAh battery that lasts 10 hours, if fully charged,” says Sundararajan. 

BluSnap flows cool air to the helmet, reducing the temperature of the air anywhere between 6-15°C for the wearer. 

“The filter inside BluSnap also blocks dust so the user breathes dust-free cool air, therefore making the travel fresh and not being affected by sweat or fatigue,” he says. 

Currently, over 5,000 pieces of the helmet have been sold, especially after the recent helmet rule, wherein both the rider and those riding pillion must wear helmets. “Another boost for our sales came when Reuters made a video of the product after several bloggers had reviewed it. Looks like lots of people, especially here, need air-conditioning in their helmets,” he says.

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers says that India is the biggest market for automobiles in the world with over 20 million units sold in 2017. 
At a cost of '2,000, BluSnap is attempting to make rides more comfortable for riders, Sundararajan says.