096. Positive & negative experiences with products based on the ADS1299 EEG chip from Texas Instruments – PETER GAMMA (Director & Physiologist), MEDITATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE SWITZERLAND (MRIS)

Products from www.OpenBCI.com

We often have read from users that products from www.OpenBCI.com are expensive
users asked question if products from www.OpenBCI.com are not developed further
We also and we agree that these devices are expensive
They mainly seem to be used by users at the beginner level for beginner projects.

The ADS1299 Performance Demonstration Kit from Texas instruments

There are papers from Indonesian scientist who used this kit for devices from 8 to 32 channels.
But this is a demo kit, and is not save for humans.
We asked in the EEVBLOG how to make this kit save for humans:

OpenBCI modules sold on eBay and Aliexpress

many of the products which are sold on www.OpenBCI.com can now also be found on eBay and Aliexpress.
We have heard of complains that they are of low quality. We cannot confirm this. But we haven’t tested this to this date.
We suppose these OpenBCI products are controlled by a markting software and are subject to stock market speculations.
Some of these products are offered for a low price, and if they receive a positive feedback, prices increased, as for instance for EEG caps
But prizes for these OpenBCI remained stable over the last view years.

Hack EEG from Adam Feuer

Another pruduct which cached our interest is HackEEG from Adam Feuer
We where happy to find an EEG product from a Zen Buddhist who meditates
Especially happy where we that he is an excellent electronics engineer as well.
He has build HackEEG which has been used in Harward and Stanford University
And issue for us personally was the Adruino Due platfrom which we are not familar with
Platforms such as the the Raspberry Pi would be easier for us personally.
A further issue was that Hack EEG offered only 8 channels
Adam Feuer made some demos how to connect 4 HackEEG’s to get 32 channels.
The problem for us personally was how to get all these 32 channels together.
The Indonesian scientists used four ADS1299 Performance Demonstration Kit from Texas instruments to 32 EEG channels and daisy chain algorithms.
But since we are physiologists who usually don’t code, to implement such a device would be very difficult and time consuming.
negative is that HackEEG is not available anymore
negative is that we do not know a community of users who use it on a sustainable basis.

PiEEG from Ildar Rakhmatulin

positive is the Rasperry Pi platform which is widely used.
positive is is also Python which is used as software.
negative is that it is not available anymore
negative is that it was pulled from the market shortly after it has been released.
negative is that it did not find a community of users.
positive is that we suppose it would be possible to build out of it for instance a 32 channel EEG device:

For us personally it would be quiet difficult to implement this, and only interesting if PiEEG is sustainable on the market with a stable prize.
But not if PiEEG is subject to marketing trusts and stock marketing speculations with the effect that it costs as much as a device from g.tec medical as soon as someone makes a 32 channel EEG device out of it.
If PiEEG would come back and would become a subject of stock market speculations, we soon would turn towards to another product which is based on single electronic components and Influx DB to avoid it.
negative is that we do not know a community of users who use it on a sustainable basis.

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