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

To choose www.openbci.com, openBCI made in China, BrainFlow, Home Assistant or another software platform for our projects?

Last Updated on April 20, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org

  • What is the difference between between ECG, EEG, MEG development with BrainFlow & with Home Assistant?

BrainFlow

In the BrainFlow slack, BrainFlow developer Andrey Parfenov from Russia:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreyparfenov/?locale=en_US

supports your projects and sais to you, you have to build these devices by yourself.

Home Assistant

  • In the Home Assistant Community, you can ask questions regarding your projects, as for instance this one we asked there:

Rasperri PI MQTT Projects for sports sensors, ECG, EEG, MEG:

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/rasperri-pi-mqtt-projects-for-sports-sensors-ecg-eeg-meg/427233

And no one will answer. So you have to build yourself, either.

  • No, no, we are only joking. But is there not some truth in it?

www.openbci.com

  • With products from www.openbci.com, we can build a multi-sensor device with up to 16 channels and Bluetooth transmission for around 2 000 USD.

Single electronic components

  • If we build such a device from single components based on TGAM clones, the costs are about the same as OpenBCI made in China modules, which is around 700 USD.

OpenBCI made in China

  • We have evidence that OpenBCI made in China does not work:
  • So is it therefore not better to build up a new device from scratch from single electronic components?

Home Assistant (part II)

  • There are already Home Assistant Intergrations for several smartwatches.
  • We did not find any support for EEG devices there yet.
  • But why should it not work?
  • Home Assistant was developed for Home Sensors, not for physological sensors.
  • Is there a similar platform for physiological sensors?

Garmin Connect

  • Garmin Connect looks similar to Home Assistant. The following graph shows Garmin Connect:
  • And a Garmin watch is a physiological multi-sensor device, which only few scientists use to do research
  • Is there no software platfrom which was especially designed for physiological sensor based in InfluxDB and Grafana?

Project developements at the University level

  • We hardly know of developers at the university level which develop projects which are based on products from www.openbci.com.
  • We invite you to go alternatively to a university library as this one with open access software:

https://infozentrum.ethz.ch/en

  • To see what can be find there.
  • University libraries are eventually the better place to search for solutions than YouTube and the web. Since do we not find on YouTube and in the web project which have been given up by developers at the university level?