Mathias Andersen from Denmark asked in the www.OpenBCI.com forum about cheap Chinese alternatives to OpenBCI – do they work? – PETER GAMMA (Director & Physiologist), MEDITATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE SWITZERLAND (MRIS)

Last Updated on February 15, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org

Mathias Andersen asked in the www.OpenBCI.com forum:

«Hey everyone,

I was speculating whether or not (cheaper) chinese alternatives are comparable in quality and accuracy to the products of OpenBCI. Does anyone have information on this? It is hard to find information on how these alternatives actually perform.»

https://openbci.com/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/19681#Comment_19681

William Croft from www.OpenBCI.com answered to Mathias Andersen

«They have multiple hardware bugs. These have been reported by users both here on the Forum and in customer support.

Peter Gamma’s from www.petergamma.org comments about this:

I have learned from users who had issues with those,

As for instance Stellarpower from Scottland:

How can Stellarpower from Scottland repair his 16 channel OpenBCI product with WIFI shield?

2. And experienced hardware developer Jenelson:

Hardware developer Jenelson with many years of experience had issues with with the communication between his OpenBCI module and his WIFI shield, how can he solve this?

But the issues they reported can be resolved in principle as I described here.
Another option is to send them back to China.
On Aliexpress there is a buyer protection to get a refund if the item arrives late or not as described.
on eBay we found that some OpenBCI modules have a life-time warranty.
I do not know how good the quality is of these OpenBCI products from China is compared to the quality of those from www.OpenBCI.com. And I do not have any numbers of users who reported about this topic. There are users reports on Aliexpress in the comments. The one we have seen are positive. Or they reported of having sent them back.
But we did not find a OpenBCI product there which had a very high number of sales.
Are there any user reports of how often is it required to send them back until we got a working setup?
We have gone through several comments about this, and most of them where positive.
But how good is the quality compared to products from www.OpenBCI.com?
The only solution solution to find this out is to test this. And to send them back to China, and to see how the costs for this are and if it is worth it.
Then we can also test for comparison modules bought from www.OpenBCI.com. How good is the quality, and how high are the shipping costs?

If you would like to share your experience about this topic, please let me know and share your experience in the comments below.