PiEEG is what the Raspberry Pi 5 is – both new & interesting products – but can we trust in those?

Last Updated on March 1, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org

Raspberry Pi 5 is the SBC many Pi users have waited for. But what will happen if Raspberry Pi Inc. goes to the stocks, as it is planed?

We suppose that we then do not have stable prices and stocks again, as during Corona. And the Pi 5 can go up to 200 – 300 USD again, as it was during Corona, a price which it is not worth. So we can only rely on the Pi 4 as a SBC with a stable price on eBay and a stable availability there as well.

And is it not similar with PiEEG? Products from www.openbci.com are on the market, since 10 years, and have been critizised to have issues:

What can www.openbci.com do to resolve the issues it has been critizised for & help at the same time PiEEG to be developed further?

and www.openbci.com has now competitors such as PiEEG from China, and devices based on InfluxDB:

How can we build a multi-channel EEG device from TGAM modules, A/D converters, Raspberry Pi’s & InfluxDB (part II)

All of this lowers the sales rates of products from www.openbci.com, which only has an income from selling products in their store. But what happens if these income drops? BITalino had a support forum. But then suddenly the support forum was closed. And we now have only the PLUX Biosignals store:

https://www.pluxbiosignals.com/

The www.openbci.com forum still exists. But will it be closed as well, if sales rates of product drop? And another company which went through a crisis is Raspberry Pi. After it survived Corona, Raspberry Pi Inc. wants to go to the stocks now, which all the negative consequences it has. And can not the same happen to www.openbci.com as well? Then we would have instable prices for all products from www.openbci.com, as well as instable availability. Then prices increase for the latest and best devices. And the older models can be found on Aliexpress & eBay.

Products from www.openbci.com can already be found on eBay & Aliexpress as OpenBCI made in China, and these aleady have stable prices there, exept for EEG caps. But PiEEG still has issues with availability, and we do not know if it will reach ever a stable price.

And the situation is similar with the Rasperry Pi 5. If Raspberry Pi Inc. goes to the stocks tomorrow, who knows if the Pi 5 will cost 300 USD tomorrow. And who is ready to pay 300 USD for a Raspberry Pi 5?

And the same for PiEEG. What happens if Marie-Claude Hepp-Reymond from the the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich writes tomorrow a paper with PiEEG in the «The Journal of Neurophysiology»? Would not the price for PiEEG increase to 50 000 USD, the same which the g.tec multi-purpose EEG setup costs, an EEG device which can also be used to write papers in the «The Journal of Neurophysiology»?

So Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org cannot trust in the Rasberry Pi 5 and PiEEG , but only on the Raspberry Pi 4 and OpenBCI Cyton, which are both available on eBay and Aliexpress with relatively stable prices and availability.