This paper presents a novel single phase switched reluctance motor (SRM) which can be directly driven by commercial AC power supply without any switching circuit and sensor. This proposed SRM is optimized based on a simple design technique. The optimized machine has aimed to be higher motor efficiency than conventional induction motors (IMs). In addition, the novel SRM can achieve the start-up with directly connecting commercial AC power supply. In this paper, the performance of the prototype single phase SRM is verified by performing simulations and experiments.