To maximize profit from PiEEG? – our market analysis for PiEEG

Last Updated on February 13, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org

Some years ago, OpenBCI modules suddently where available also on Aliexpress and eBay, after we often have read that modules from www.OpenBCI.com are very expensive. The most affordable modules of those seemed to be linked to approximately the costs of 8 individual TGAM modules on Aliexpress.

This was a calculation which makes sense somehow.

In that way sellers can find out if an OpenBCI module is worth more than 8 individual TGAM modules.

Not for us personally, since as soon as the costs for these OpenBCI modules on Aliexpress would increase to say about 1 000 USD, to the same costs as the modules which are sold on www.OpenBCI.com, it becomes more attractive to build our own device which is based on individual TGAM modules and InfluxDB:

How to build open source EEG devices at the level of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Zurich, Switzerland?

The prizes for OpenBCI modules on Aliexpress and eBay are randomly scattered. This is a hint that these modules are controlled by a marketing software, with the goal to maximize profit from those. If people are ready to pay more for these modules, because for instance if it would happen that people buy huge amounts of these modules, because they are extremely attactive and every human on the planet buys such an OpenBCI module, prizes for those would increase, until this tendency is stopped by a competitor.

But this did not happen in recent years with OpenBCI modules. These seem to be sold not very often. On Aliexpress you can see that they are sold every now and then, but not in huge amounts.

This was was different for instance for Orange Pi 5`s sold on Aliexpress. They where introduced at the beginning for very competitive prize for around 60 USD, but shortly after that the prizes for those increased to around 130 USD.

This was also different for OpenBCI EEG caps sold on Aliexpress. An OpenBCI Ultracortex “Mark IV” compatible EEG cap was increased in prize shortly after we gave positive feedback about those for about 100 USD. This was a sign that someone does stock market speculations with those.

We complained about this. Then later on similar OpenBC Ultracortex “Mark IV” compatible EEG cap was sold on eBay to lower a lower price again.

This was a sign that there are sellers out there for OpenBCI modules on eBay and Aliexpress which are highly competitive. Almost as competitive as the Swiss which are known to be extremely competitive.

We observed also that after we complained about WIFI shields which have issues, new OpenBCI wifi shield where sold from these sellers which do not have issues. These where preferentially sold on eBay, whereas those with issues where preferentially sold on Aliexpress, and the prizes for those tropped for the once which had issues from it’s initial prize of around 150 USD to around 50 USD.

All of this makes sense and are the signs of highly competitive sellers of OpenBCI products on Aliexpress and eBay.

But someone who is not highly competitive is Ildar Rakhmatulin with his PiEEG. Around at the beginning of the year 2023 PiEEG was introduced. But then it only started to sell on November 2023, and only the 4 channel version. The 8 channel version was announced for mid 2024. In November a second batch of PiEEG 4 channel was announced to be sold at the beginning of 2024.

And now PiEEG is not available anymore, none of the versions:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/hackerbci/pieeg#products

This is a pitty, since develpers are not able to develop such products, and this harms PiEEG.

If PiEEG is available, and for instance Flavio Frohlich would be interested in it, he could add for instance the OpenBCI GUI software to it, as for instance Adam Feuer has added it to HackEEG.

Flavio Frohlich is a very skilled person and is educated as an electrical engineer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and has an International Diploma in electrical engineering at the Imperial College in London.

Some years ago Flavio tried to stream his Muse headband to a Raspberry Pi 4, but this did not work, as he reported here:

https://github.com/alexandrebarachant/muse-lsl/issues/140

We wrote to Flavio that it would be easier to use PiEEG with a Raspberry Pi 4 than the Muse headband. But now PiEEG is not available anymore, and Flavio is not available to use it, and also we.

Therefore, bring PiEEG back, Ildar Rakhmatulin, so that Flavio Frohlich can use it an develop it, if he wants to, but also we and others.

If not eventually other sellers will take over, and eventually also we. Since PiEEG is an open source hardware, which means everybody is able to produce PiEEG:

The advantages of open source hardware in the example of products which are based on the ADS1299 EEG chip from Texas Instruments

But we do not have any plans to sell PiEEG. We are physiologists and not interested in software and hardware development.

But still we are interested in how to develop PiEEG, and should it not be available realiably from Ildar Rakhmatulin, we are grateful for that Ildar already has shown us how to build or own a brain-computer interface (ironbci DIY) in PCBWAY:

This is an alternative for us personally if ldar Rakhmatulin would not bring back PiEEG. To learn how to build our own brain-computer interface (ironbci DIY) in PCBWAY.

But is this not something every physiologist but also Flavio Frohlich hates?

Therefore, bring back PiEEG, Ildar Rakhmatulin, as soon as possible. Since we suppose that else sooner or later someone else will sell it on Aliexpress and eBay.