The present invention discloses a bow net contact hard point detecting device and method. The device comprises: an image acquisition unit, the image acquisition unit continuously photographs a pantograph head area at a fixed angle view to obtain a continuous frame image of the pantograph head; an image processing unit, the image processing unit extracts positions of the pantograph head in each frame of image captured by the image acquisition unit; a calculation unit, the calculation unit detects a bow net contact hard point according to a pixel deviation between frames of positions of the pantograph head. The device utilizes a machine vision to determine contact area of the bow net, has high recognition precision, gives accurate and fast alarm; can perform bow net contact hard point detection with no need of any pantograph modification, does not contact high voltage power, thereby reducing influence of the high voltage power on the system, and is convenient to maintain.