Last Updated on January 15, 2025 by pg@petergamma.org
Everything is there in principle to repair the OpenBCI WIFI shield. We can buy Wifi shields on eBay and Aliexpress which have issues and repair those.
And what is OpenBCI without the Wifi shield? Is it not a Citroën Deux Chevaux among the EEG devices?:
An EEG device with slow Bluetooth transmission and only 16 EEG channels. But when we would like to repair the Wifi shield, would we not have the problem Stellarpower and Jenelson had, for instance problems with the software and problems with the connectors? All of these are problems which take time to solve and to investigate.
And everytime Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org
is investigating such questions, he comes to the point: Is it worth it? And since we have no community of people who does this, did skilled developers previously found this answer, and have left this device?
We have now a community of around 3 people who tried to repair OpenBCI made in China, and all of them failed. Will it be better with the Wifi shield? And would not already someone have done it, if it would be worth it?
Is it not better to invest your time in a new architecture like this one?
https://petergamma.org/category/influxdb
We indeed have a community such as Graham Briggs who develops OpenBCI further:
And it would be highly desirable that someone like Graham Briggs tries to repair the OpenBCI Wifi shield in the manner described here. And reports about his experience. Since only with the Wifi shield, OpenBCI can unfold it s full potential.
And do not one of the best papers who use OpenBCI use the Wifi shield, as for instance:
A Novel OpenBCI Framework for EEG-Based Neurophysiological Experiments
https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/7/3763
And is it not also an issue, that one of the best papers which uses OpenBCI is published in Sensors (Basel)? Basel in Switzerland is great. But what about the journal “Sensors”?. Do they not publish almost everything which is submitted?
Is it not a shame for OpenBCI that they sell an OpenBCI Galea for 25 000 USD, but never relaunched the Wifi shield? And is this not a sign that this device is becoming old and is slowly dying? And is the OpenBCI Galea for 25 000 USD not already the obituary of this device?