The Avalanche Smartprobe launches

“Saving lives starts with understanding the snow under our feet and avoiding avalanches before they happen,” says Brint Markle, co-founder and CEO of AvaTech, a new company focused on developing proactive avalanche safety technology. Their new probe, the SP1, launches today alongside AvaNet, a cloud platform for sharing avalanche data.

According to AvaTech’s press release, the SP1 reads snowpack structure, slope angle and aspect, then geotags the data and uploads it in real time onto the AvaNet platform. The probe, which is geared toward snow professionals, measures a collapsible 150cm, weighs about 1lb. and can be synced wirelessly to a smartphone for tracking data. Alongside several fellow MIT alumni and Black Diamond’s former ski category director, Thomas Laakso, Markle will unveil the SP1 at this month’s International Snow Safety Workshop in Banff, Canada. Here’s an introduction to the probe.