Last Updated on April 17, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
- Aren’t we in a dilemma with OpenBCI products? Are there newly developed products from OpenBCI. Yes, there is. It is the OpenBCI Galea, which we can buy for around 20 000 USD, which is a really extraordinary device.
- On the other hand, we have OpenBCI products which are sold on Aliexpress and ebay. These products seem to be updated, if they have issues. But will those products not also be updated as far as their price is concerned, as soon as they become interesting for costumers? And how will this end? That OpenBCI products on eBay and Aliexpress gain marked shares, and at the end these are as expensive as products from www.OpenBCI.com?
- Are currently the prices for the most affordable OpenBCI modules on eBay and Aliexpress linked to the prices of single sensor EEG components?
- If so, does this not all mean, that building multi sensor devices from single ECG, EEG and EMG modules and InfluxDB becomes more interesting for costumers, who are looking for the most affordable devices?
- Instructions from How to Electronics for remote patient monitor ECG device which attach single ECG modules to the Ubdots clouds can be rewritten to attach the sensors to Home Assistant, InfluxDB or NeuroKit2. We can write a paper about this, How To Electronics makes a YouTube video about this, and Adafruit picks up the product for Adafruit.io.
- Aren’t there already affordable clones available from TGAM EEG modules, and aren’t the prices for single ECG, EEG and MEG stable, so that it is possible to write a review about these products which is positive, which does not cause an increase for the price of these modules?
- If the answer is yes, then it is the way out of this dilemma. There is a gap between products which are based on OpenBCI, OpenBCI GUI, LSL and Matlab, and products which are based on single sensors, Home Assistant, InfluxDB and Python.
- If we look at the great variety of products reviewed by How To Electronics and Andreas Spiess and at the affordable prices of these products and compare those to the products we reviewed in our journal, then we ask ourselves if these ECG, EEG and MEG sensor devices are controlled by a marketing trust to control the prices?
- Marketing trusts are forbitten in Switzerland by antitrust laws:
- Marketing trusts are built if there is little competition. These marketing trusts with the goal to control prices on keep prices for these productshigh harm these products and the costumers.
- The more competition there is on the market the more alive market becomes, and the more interesting they become for buyers, product developers, but also for sellers.
Where are the developers at the university level who develop new OpenBCI products? There are a view, but do developers not leave the dilemma we described here through the Home Assistant, InfuxDB, Python etc. pathway, which offers affordable soft- and hardware products and a community and products which are alive and interesting for costumers? These Home Assistant, InfluxDB and Python products are not controlled by marketing trusts to keep prices for these products high and hinder developers and their community to grow.