Peter Gamma (Physiologist & Director) Meditation Research Institute Switzerland (MRIS)

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What are the advantages of PiEEG over the Muse Headband & OpenBCI?

Posted bypg@petergamma.org 2 Comments on What are the advantages of PiEEG over the Muse Headband & OpenBCI?

Last Updated on February 14, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org

The Muse Headband

  • PiEEG wit 4 channels was available since November 2023. This device is for instance superior to the Muse headband. The Muse headband does not offer an SDK since more than four years:

https://github.com/sccn/labstreaminglayer/issues/30

  • This made supporters from the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience recommend to buy another device than the Muse headband. PiEEG with 4 channels would be such an alternative
  • EEG transmission of PiEEG is faster than with the Muse headband, which only offers Bluetooth transmission which is slow.
  • PiEEG is connected over pins to a Raspberry Pi hat, which offers the fastest transmission speed which are possible.
  • The Muse headband cannot be streamed to a Raspberry Pi over LSL:
  • https://petergamma.org/how-to-resolve-issues-with-eeg-streams-on-the-raspberry-pi-4/
  • PiEEG is a good alternative to solve this problem.
  • PiEEG with 4 channels is more affordable than a Muse headband

OpenBCI

  • The OpenBCI modules are usually connected over a Bluetooth dongle to a PC or a Raspberry Pi. But Bluetooth transmission is slow. If we are for instance interested in fast gamma waves, Bluetooth transmission is an issue.
  • OpenBCI Cyton requires a Bluetooth dongle which has an integrated RFDuino that communicates with the RFDuino on the Cyton board. Such a dongle is not required with PiEEG since it is a Raspberry Pi shield which is connected directly to a Rasberry Pi.
  • There is an OpenBCI WIFI shield. But it is not available from www.OpenBCI.com anymore. Some sellers on Aliexpress and eBay offers. The WIFI shield had reliablity issues. Some sellers say they have resolved these issue. Some may still have the issues. There is not WIFI shield required for PiEEG. PiEEG is a Raspberry Pi hat. PiEEG has the same ADS1299 EEG chip from Texas Instruments which the OpenBCI Cyton has. So PiEEG with 8 channels which was announced for mid 2024 should be able to do the same as OpenBCI Cyton.
  • OpenBCI has the OpenBCI GUI software. PiEEG offers Python code which needs to be connected to a software platform.
  • PiEEG with 8 channels is more affordable than OpenBCI Cyton sold by www.OpenBCI.com
  • We are not experts as far as the ADS1299 EEG chip from Texas Instruments and OpenBCI Cyton. But we know that the architecture of OpenBCI Cyton is rather complicated. For instance we know that the OpenBCI WIFI shield needs a firmware. And also Cyton needs a firmware. Firmwares are not required for PiEEG, since the ADS1299 EEG is connected over the Raspberry Pi hat pins to a Raspberry Pi, from where it can be controlled in Python. This is an architecture which is much more superior to Cyton.
  • OpenBCI offers 4 to 16 channels. PiEEG offers 4 and 8 channels. This 16 channel limitation of OpenBCI is an issue for us personally since a long time.
  • There are workarounds to use two OpenBCI modules at the same time, but these are not perfekt. This problem could be solved easier with PiEEG:

https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?p=2178452#p2178452

  • The ADS1299 EEG chip from Texas Instruments makes PiEEG suitable for research applications. The chip offers 24 bit A/D conversion rate. Research applications require at least 16 bit.
  • Research and medical grade devices for instance cost from g.tec medical up to 50 000 USD:
90.02 Research & medical grade ECG devices which some of those were used to study the accuracy of consumer grade HRMs in different papers
  • If we are able to join sensor data from several PiEEGs into one data base, we could replace expensive devices with PiEEG
  • A pre-requisite for this that PiEEG is stable in price and available. Else it is not worth to invest time in such developments
  • But we can also replace multi-channel devices from iWork, Schiller, Adinstruments or g.tec medical with devices which are based on PiEEG.
  • In general, an ADS1299 EEG chip on a Raspberry Pi hat which can be controlled from a Raspberry Pi is a much simpler architecture than the architecture of OpenBCI Cyton. This offers many advantages. And people who previously used their software with Cyton can use PiEEG instead to use these advantages.
  • We do not know of someone uses OpenBCI over wired connection. Most use OpenBCI with a Bluetooth dongle which is slow.
  • PiEEG is also more affordable that OpenBCI Ganglion and Cyton from www.OpenBCI.com
  • PiEEG offers an interesting alternative to Cyton to resolve the issue’s Cyton has which were mentioned by Robert Oostenveld on his blog:
OpenBCI issues discovered by Robert Oostenveld Associate Principal Investigator at Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour in Nijmegen, the Netherlands
  • For all of these reasons, PiEEG is superior to OpenBCI Cyton and Ganglion.
  • PiEEG with 4 channels has been available since november 2023, but now it is not available anymore:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/hackerbci/pieeg#products

Please support us and write to PiEEG developer Ildar Rakhmatulin to bring PiEEG back as soon as possible:
E-mail of Ildar Rakhmatulin: I.Rakhmatulin@hw.ac.uk