Wind, load and drop-zone alarms fitted to tower cranes on high-rise sites
TL;DR Jibwatch is a retrofit kit for tower cranes. You get a wind sensor, a hook load cell, slew and trolley sensors and a light-and-siren barrier that marks the ground under a moving load, and every lift gets logged. Builders and crane-hire firms pay monthly to keep people out from under loads and to show what happened if something goes wrong.
Tower cranes cause some of the worst accidents on Indian sites. In August 2026 at Airoli, Navi Mumbai, a crane's lifting assembly failed and steel rods fell on two workers, killing both. Police said nobody had cleared the fall zone or barricaded an exclusion area, and they booked the operator, the site engineer and two companies[1]. Two years earlier in Gurugram, a crew fixing a crane high on a tower fell when shuttering gave way, and four of them died[2].
How many crane deaths happen a year? Nobody knows. A 2026 study of fatal falls had to rely on newspaper archives because the National Crime Records Bureau does not track construction accidents, and an RTI reply said such records were not maintained[3].
What it does, in regulatory terms: monitoring and alerting equipment that supports, and does not replace, the safety duties of the employer, crane owner and certified operator under the OSH Code. It is not a crane control system.
Jibwatch fits onto the cranes you already have. Sensors read wind speed, hook load, slew angle and trolley position. When a load moves, the system works out where it could fall and switches on portable light-and-siren posts covering that patch of ground, so workers see and hear where not to stand. Overload or high wind sets off an alarm in the cab and sends a message to the site safety officer. Each lift is logged with time, weight and wind.
The seed wanted AI cameras watching the whole site for hazards, and I narrowed it. General camera analytics is already sold by several firms[4][5], and another idea in this directory covers harness detection. Cranes pack the risk of heavy, sudden failures into one machine, which suits a focused product much better.
The builder or main contractor pays per crane per month. Crane-hire companies are a second buyer, fitting the kit before renting a crane out. My estimate is ₹25,000–60,000 per crane per month, and you'll need to test it. Insurers and lenders don't pay yet, but the questions they ask after an accident shape the demand.
The four Labour Codes, including the OSH Code, came into force in November 2025[6], and police now book site engineers and companies, not only operators, after crane deaths[1]. Developers are building taller in the metros, so more tower cranes swing over occupied ground. And radio parts now clear approval by self-declaration[7].
There is no public count of tower cranes working in India, and no market figure for crane safety systems. The demand signal is legal exposure - after the Airoli deaths, the operator, engineer and both companies were booked under BNS Section 106(1)[1]. As an adjacent signal, one French maker sells anti-collision and wind systems for tower cranes worldwide[8], so kits like this are a recognised product line.
French makers sell tower crane anti-collision systems and anemometers[8]. Crane makers fit load and moment limiters at the factory, though older and imported second-hand cranes vary a lot. Some Indian and regional startups sell camera-based site and industrial safety analytics[4][5]. I found no Indian product that ties crane sensing to a marked drop zone on the ground, and that's your gap.
| Difficulty | Hard (53/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹1.5–2.8 Cr |
| Time to launch | 9–12 months |
Hardware on a crane has to survive dust, rain and vibration at height, and installing it needs riggers who can work on the jib. Working out a reliable drop zone from a swinging load is harder than it sounds. Then there's selling, which means convincing builders to pay for safety before an accident and not after.
Jibwatch needs product approvals, and it sells into a site safety regime that it supports but never replaces.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't trust AI to decide a lift is safe. It warns and logs, and the certified operator and supervisor keep every decision.
Want to work out the AI layer for Jibwatch? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I think this suits a founder with crane, rigging or industrial-safety engineering experience and the patience for long sales cycles. If you want a quick SaaS then this is the wrong one, honestly. First prove on three cranes that the drop-zone alarms keep people clear during real lifts without anyone muting them.
Plan for roughly ₹1.5–2.8 Cr, mostly on hardware development, approvals, pilots and field engineers.
Yes. Expect WPC type approval for wireless units and possibly BIS registration, and build your product around the OSH Code duties of your buyers.
Yes, crane accidents are a global problem. Check local product certification and lifting regulations before you ship.
The free Jibwatch validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the labour-code and radio checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for builders and crane owners, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Jibwatch or something close to it? The make-or-break work is a drop-zone alarm that crews trust and do not mute, and that's the kind of thing I help founders figure out. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.