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

                                                                         Table of Contents

099h. Why is OpenBCI not used for clinical and research applications?

  • OpenBCI has the specifications which are required for this as you can see in this table:
90.02 Research & medical grade ECG devices which some of those were used to study the accuracy of consumer grade HRMs in different papers
  • But neither EEGLAB developer Robert Oostenveld nor Fieldtrip developerArnaud Delorme seem to use it.
099g. Is OpenBCI suitable for scientific studies to analyse physiological data during practicing meditation?
  • Only Chinese OpenBCI developers which offer «OpenBCI made in China» seem to have tested it. This picture is taken from the product offer on Aliexpress:
  • But where is the paper they have published about it?

An issues seems to be the connectivity of OpenBCI.

  • OpenBCI users Stellarpower and Jenelson seem to have used «OpenBCI made in China» and had issues with those.
Summary of some known issues of «OpenBCI made in China»

Cable version

  • There is also a cable version avaible for OpenBCI made in China which is sold for 230 UD
  • But Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org does not know of anyone who uses it that way. There are some informations about this in the www.OpenBCI.com, but only experts seem to have implemented it

Bluetooth version

  • www.OpenBCI.com sells the Bluetooth version
  • But Fieldtrip developer Robert Oostenveld writes about this:

«The connectivity with the dongle is not so stable, sometimes requiring multiple attempts to connect, resetting the board, replugging the dongle, etc.»

OpenBCI issues discovered by Robert Oostenveld Associate Principal Investigator at Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour in Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Wifi version

  • Some WIFI shields have issues, others where repaired, but we have to find this. It can also be repaired but it needs soldering

Comments of Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org about this:

The connectivity of OpenBCI Cyton is buggy. These issues can be resolved, but it takes a bit effort. But who took this effort and has reported about it? Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org. made a bit effort to report about it on www.petergamma.org. And after he found out about it his experience is negative about OpenBCI Cyton.

There is a big effort to resolve the issues of OpenBCI Cyton. Is it worth it? And is the effort not smaller to build up a new device with single TGAM modules and 4 channel A/D converters and eventually InfluxDB?