Indian badminton star PV Sindhu has been spotted wearing an unusual device on the side of her forehead while competing at the BWF World Championships 2026 in New Delhi. Unlike a conventional smartwatch or fitness tracker, the small wearable sits near the temple and is designed to monitor signals related to what is happening inside the brain. The device, called Temple, reportedly tracks parameters such as cerebral blood flow and brain oxygenation. Sindhu had also been seen wearing it during the Thomas and Uber Cup in April, drawing attention to the growing use of brain-focused technology in elite sport. The wearable was developed by a team associated with Zomato co-founder Deepinder Goyal, who has discussed the technology publicly. Its appearance on an elite Indian athlete point towards a broader shift in sports technology, from tracking heart rate, steps and sleep to trying to understand how the brain responds to intense competition. But what exactly can such a device tell us about an athlete's brain?

What Does The Device Monitor?

According to Dr Sanjay Pandey, Head, Neurology and Stroke Medicine, Amrita Hospital, Faridabad, the most interesting aspect of a brain-focused wearable is not simply the number it produces, but whether those measurements can provide meaningful information about how the brain performs under pressure. "Badminton star PV Sindhu was seen wearing an experimental wearable called Temple that measures parameters like cerebral blood flow and cognitive load. This technology is attempting to measure how the brain responds to intense physical and cognitive demand, which is much harder than what your typical fitness tracker does," says Dr Pandey. Traditional fitness trackers primarily monitor indicators such as heart rate, movement, sleep and sometimes blood oxygen levels. A device positioned near the forehead, however, attempts to gather information associated with cerebral physiology.

Why Would An Athlete Need Brain Monitoring?

Sporting fatigue is not limited to the muscles. In a fast-paced sport such as badminton, the brain is constantly processing visual information, predicting an opponent's movements, maintaining balance, coordinating precise movements and making decisions within fractions of a second. "This is important because sporting fatigue isn't all about muscle," explains Dr Pandey. An athlete may therefore appear physically recovered based on conventional measures while still experiencing substantial cognitive or neurological workload. For an elite badminton player, for example, tracking how the brain responds to repeated high-intensity rallies could potentially provide another layer of information about fatigue and recovery.

How Can A Wearable Measure Brain Activity?

Some brain-focused wearables use light-based sensors to detect changes associated with blood flow and oxygenation. These signals can then potentially be combined with other physiological measurements and analysed using algorithms to identify patterns associated with cognitive workload, stress, fatigue or recovery. "The idea is interesting: instead of asking an athlete, 'How tired are you?', objective longitudinal data may be able to signal when the brain is working abnormally hard despite apparently adequate physical recovery," says Dr Pandey. However, this does not mean that the device can directly read an athlete's thoughts or diagnose a neurological condition.

Can It Diagnose Brain Problems?

This is where scientific caution becomes particularly important. "A brain wearable is not an EEG, MRI or clinical neurological assessment," says Dr Pandey. Signals obtained from the forehead can be affected by movement, skin characteristics, blood flow and environmental factors. Algorithms can also interpret physiological signals differently depending on how they are trained and validated. A reading labelled as "cognitive load", for example, should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of neurological fatigue, brain injury or disease. Any medical diagnosis still requires appropriate clinical assessment and, when necessary, established neurological investigations.

Why Is Long-Term Data More Important?

The real potential of brain-focused wearables may lie not in a single measurement but in patterns collected repeatedly over time. If the technology is properly validated, researchers could potentially compare an athlete's brain-related signals with sleep, training load, physical fatigue, recovery and performance. This could eventually help sports scientists understand whether an athlete is recovering adequately or whether their cognitive workload remains unusually high. For elite athletes competing across packed schedules, that information could be valuable in making decisions around training intensity, recovery and performance.

Is Brain Monitoring The Future Of Sports?

Sports technology has traditionally focused on measurable physical parameters such as speed, distance, heart rate and movement. Brain-focused wearables represent an attempt to expand that picture. "The next frontier in elite sport might not just be about measuring how fast the body moves. It might be an understanding of how hard the brain is working to make that movement possible," says Dr Pandey. However, the technology is still an emerging area, and its usefulness will ultimately depend on scientific validation, accuracy and whether the measurements consistently translate into meaningful improvements in athlete health and performance. PV Sindhu's use of a small brain-focused wearable highlights how elite sports technology is moving beyond conventional fitness tracking. A device such as Temple may provide information related to cerebral blood flow, oxygenation and estimates of cognitive workload, potentially offering researchers another way to understand fatigue and recovery. But these measurements should not be confused with a clinical brain assessment. The real promise lies in collecting reliable data over time and combining it with established measures of physical performance, sleep, recovery and health. The future of sports science may therefore involve monitoring not just how hard the body is working, but how hard the brain is working to keep the body performing.



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