Last Updated on February 18, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
Although we are interested in physiololgical sensors for practicing meditation, and also OpenBCI since several years, we do not use OpenBCI. A Fenix 6 paired to a Polar OH1 was enough for practicing breath meditation. This setup was accurate at 12 breath per minute, which is the lowest physiological value for a normal breath rate.
We reviewed a lot of options. Most of those where too complicated to build it for us personally. But we are interested on the long-term. And we compared many options.
An option we now come back is OpenBCI Cyton & WIFI & InfluxDB. A setup without InfluxDB is only of interest on the short term, for us personally. A relatively easy way to connect individual sensors to InlfuxDB is over ESP32. But ESP32 has only a 12 bit A/D conversion, but we want research grade, which is 16 bit. OpenBCI offers 24 bit. To get 16 bit with ESP32, additional components are necessary.
We discussed the OpenBCI WIFI shield several times in our journal. The WIFI shield has issues, but can repaired. But who uses it. As far as we know only Conor Russomano in OpenBCI Galea, and A J Keller and Alex Castillo in Neurosity Crown. There three where also involved in discussions about it. We do not know of any others which are interested in it, except for Stellarpower from Scottland. Many OpenBCI users seem only to be interested in OpenBCI temporarily.
We ask ourselves also, if OpenBCI CEO Conor Russomano is interested on the long term in OpenBCI? If so, would then sell an OpenBCI Galea for 20 000 USD, from which we do not know if this device is worth the money. Is Russomanos interest the same as Zen Priest Vanja Palmers interest is in the Felsentor Retreat Center at the Rigi, where he offers Zen courses with animals?
William Croft from OpenBCI wrote, that OpenBCI has only an income from selling OpenBCI components. Does this mean, if OpenBCI does not sell enough components anymore, OpenBCI will close?
Our interest is on the long-term in practicing meditation and physiological sensors, with or without OpenBCI. We suggest to backup all components of OpenBCI for people who are interested on the long-term, OpenBCI is open source hardware and software. The information about OpenBCI is avalable openly.
To repair the OpenBCI WIFI shield requires some soldering. And we thing again it is worth testing. If we get it work, it is possible to connect it to OpenBCI GUI. And if it works, we can connect it over the OpenBCI WIFI shield REST API to InfluxDB, from where we can do anything in Python. The OpenBCI WIFI shield has issues. But it is the latest component of OpenBCI which we know, and if was developed by computer scientist A J Keller. And the OpenBCI WIFI shield is also one of the most interesting components of OpenBCI for us personally. It offers a fast WIFI stream. It is not routed through LSL, but it offers a REST API, and is a contemporary interface which does not require additional soft- and hardware components.
32 channel board can be bought from Emotiv Epox Flex and on Aliexpress. Both options cost around 1200 USD. Both offer a limited warranty. The advantage of building up a 32 channel setup from 4 OpenBCI Cyton boards and 4 OpenBCI WIFI shield is, that if single components fail, the costs for replacement of the single components are not that high, especially if the components can be manufactured in an affordable way, or can be manufactured by a company of our choice.
According to William Croft from OpenBCI, not all parameters are available with this setup with InfluxDB, which are available with an ordinary OpenBCI setup. To get all the parameters, a hardware change would be necessary. But do we need all parameters? If so, we still can ask an engineer to help us. But we won t ask an engineer, who want to sell us obsolete components at top prices.