Last Updated on August 19, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
With which 3 lead ECG device do we have the largest community? Most probably with the most afforable and easiest solution. If we build a 3 lead ECG open source ECG device, it would be highly desirable to have a community of testers. For ECG devices, we have a community of developers from Scott Harden in Florida to Rahmat Ilias Basti in Indonesia. The signal to noise ratio of the OpenBCI Ganglion is better than for the OpenBCI Cyton, but the Ganglion is only available from www.OpenBCI.com , but not from other sellers.
The most affordable option for the OpenBCI Cyton is the cable version which starts at about 230 USD. The cable version can be connected to BrainFlow, but we do not know if it works with OpenBCI GUI:
If we choose the cable version, we have the most affordable option. Also the experienced EEG device developer Adam Feuer connected his HackEEG over cable to a battery powered laptop and is still alive. If we choose the cable version, we have no issues with Bluetooth dongles and WIFI shields. And we suggest to connect the Cyton to a battery powered Raspberry Pi 4 or Zero W2 to make it suitable for mobile use, and we can run Python code on it.
But we have not yet studied in detail if OpenBCI GUI supports the the cable version, and if not how big the effort is to do this. We already have an example for a 3 lead ECG in OpenBCI GUI:
https://docs.openbci.com/GettingStarted/Biosensing-Setups/ECGSetup/
And it would be nice to have this option to be able to check the ECG peaks in real-time. We probably will test OpenBCI up to 16 channel EEG sooner or later, and for fast brain waves we prefer a WIFI connection, if the cable version does not work. A Cyton board with a WIFI shield is now availabe again on Ebay which sold as issue-free:
https://www.ebay.ch/itm/284876280716
We do not know of anybody who managed to use OpenBCI GUI with the cable connection. We do not know of anybody who uses BrainFlow with the cable version as well.