Adding a little magic to spellbinding gizmos

Dubai: With Dubai-based Merlin Digital, it’s always a question of creating magic.

Starting off with assembling computers, Merlin’s repertoire covers anything and everything from robotics, drones, smart homes, 3D printers, security systems, wearable devices and more.

Gulf News met Merlin’s two founders — the brothers Sharad and Rohit Bachani — who have created a niche by creating gadgets at affordable prices and with the aim of making an impact in everyday life. “The business started differentiating when we started looking at what is not available in the market,” said Sharad. “Being a technology enthusiast myself, I look at things that I wanted to buy and if it is not available, we thought of making it. That was the idea behind it.”

In fact, Merlin came out with MP3 players a few years before the iPod came out. “My father was the driving force and he made sure that I do this full-time as a profession rather than as a hobby,” he added.

Now the company is preparing to launch an array of products targeted at the fastest growing consumer segment. “Wearables in health and wellness segment and virtual reality [VR] headsets offer huge growth potential as they are still in the nascent stages,” Sharad said.

Merlin has been in the development of its virtual reality devices for more than a year since Oculus, Sony and HTC started unearthing the possibilities. Even though virtual reality has been there for a more than 10 years, Rohit said that manufacturers really started getting serious this year.

The artificial environment creates a simulated three-dimensional world, and there have been a few early devices since 2013. “Any technology will take couple of years to become mainstream. VR has taken more time, it is true. Right now, the snowball effect is in place,” Rohit said.

Like smartphones in the pockets of everyone today, “we see VR will be in the hands of everybody. There are decent VR apps available right now to experience the effects.”

Merlin has close to a dozen VR apps in collaboration with developers and has exclusive apps in collaboration with TRA, Abu Dhabi Government and Sharjah Government. The company will be showcasing a wearable headset that monitors HRV (heart rate variability), a measurement of the variation in the time interval between heartbeats, at CES — the global consumer electronics and consumer technology trade show that takes place every January in Las Vegas — for the first time.

“Medically HRV is important as doctors use to measure the state of heart patients. As sensor technology is so cheap nowadays, it will cost around $200. We have designed the patented system and the app and can be monitored with the smartphone,” Sharad said. “We want to take technology that seems magical and make it accessible.

“The strategy is the same right from the beginning. Our intention is to leave a mark in our own way in the industry. We don’t want to copy anybody else. We want to do whatever we can in our own best way.”

However, he added that uniqueness is key or when Merlin develops a product and how this could make an “impact in everyday life and add value”.

“We have a model where we work with factories — close to 100. In most cases, we don’t have to edit any additional design works and try to keep cost to the minimum. If a product is 80 per cent complete, we don’t waste a lot of time on the other 20 per cent. We try to work around it by adding features. In some cases, a product has to be designed from the scratch,” he said.

Merlin is not a big player in the smartphone and TV business. “It is a market where we cannot add any value,” Rohit said. “I don’t see we can do anything better than what Samsung and Apple are doing right now.

“We are really not in the mainstream consumer business and that is really out of choice. We don’t like to be in places where things are already being done. If we can’t really improve things, why to be in that business.”