- Bug Bug cuts hardware costs from US$800 to about US$100.
- Smaller, palm-sized product able to capture a wider range of insect sounds.
- Startup eyes first European trial as demand for crop protection evidence grows.
The company uses AI-powered acoustic sensors to detect insect activity, aiming to replace conventional monitoring methods that can be inaccurate and damage plants.
Co-founder and chief executive Jadey Huray believes tightening regulatory requirements in Europe are creating new opportunities for technologies that can independently measure pest activity.
Bug Bug is currently negotiating a commercial trial in Europe, where increasing scrutiny of crop protection products is driving demand for better monitoring and verification tools.
The company’s technology could help growers and crop-protection companies collect objective data on pest populations before and after treatments, helping demonstrate whether interventions are having the intended effect.
“It makes Bug Bug even more timely. People have been asking us about the ‘so what’. This is a very pressing ‘so what’,” Huray told AgNavigator.
Smaller, cheaper, and more sensitive
This latest development coincides with the launch of the company’s first commercial trial-ready system, which made its debut today at the Asia Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit in Singapore.
According to Huray, the latest version reduces the cost of the complete solution from approximately US$800 to about US$100, including the processing hardware, contact microphones and solar panel.
“We’re very excited because it’s a fraction of the price for the whole solution,” she said.
The hardware has also undergone a significant redesign.
The previous laboratory prototype was roughly the size of an A4 sheet of paper, while the new version is compact enough to fit into the palm of a hand.
“Everything has been ruggedised, miniaturised and made more modular to support real-world deployment,” said Huray.
At the same time, Bug Bug has improved the system’s sensitivity, allowing it to detect a wider range of frequencies and capture more insect sounds, creating richer datasets for analysis.
With more affordable hardware and growing interest from overseas markets, Huray sees the company entering a new phase of growth centred on helping agriculture generate better evidence of what is happening in the field.
Preparing for field validation
With its new and improved product, the company is preparing for a commercial trial in Indonesian sugarcane.
The project will mark a transition from controlled laboratory testing to real-world field deployment, allowing the company to evaluate how the technology performs amid the environmental noise and operational challenges of commercial farming.
The year-long trial will be deployed across 96 samples of cane, across six fields to identify boring insects.
Huray said the trial would help the company determine deployment requirements and assess how effectively the system could replace or supplement manual scouting practices.
Currently, pest monitoring often involves workers physically inspecting crops and cutting open plants to identify pest damage.
The Indonesian trial will examine how quickly and reliably Bug Bug can generate similar insights through passive monitoring, while also helping the company build the commercial case for broader adoption.
Alongside the product upgrade, Bug Bug has strengthened its technical capabilities with the addition of a dedicated hardware specialist.
The new hire joins a team that already includes Huray as well as Laurence Still, co-founder and chief technology officer with expertise in artificial intelligence, and entomologist Dr Emily Bick, who serves as chief bug officer.
Looking ahead, Huray said the company’s priority is securing additional commercial trials and expanding into new crop segments.
Among the most promising opportunities are apple orchards, where Bug Bug has already seen encouraging results during earlier testing.
For now, however, the focus remains on validating Bug Bug’s commercial potential through field deployments.
