Last Updated on June 6, 2026 by pg@petergamma.org
Stock market speculation & scalping with OpenBCI modules sold on Aliexpress? First of all users reported that these devices are faulty. These sellers always offered demo devices which where free from issues. So we suppose that these sellers are looking for new costumers.
For us personally the OpenBCI architecure is at the end. We are not interested in special developments from Chinese developers. And modules which do not have stable prices are not very interesting as well.
For Swiss costumers like us, we prefer to buy products from Aliexpress instead of buying those from the United States. Since shipping costs and import taxes are lower. But it seems that these products based on the ADS1299 from Texas Instruments seem to be co-ordinated internationally. And there seems to be a monopole postition of Texas Instruments, a company which controls what with each ADS1299 EEG chip happens word-wide?
We have read often of complains that products from www.openbci.com are expensive. Maybe sooner or later Chinese developers and manufacturers break free from this international control by Texas Instruments, and make themselves independent?
For Swiss costumers these ADS1299 products from Texas Instruments are not very competitive. In times of InfluxDB, it is only a question of time, until those are replaced by products which are based on InfluxDB, were the hardware costs are very low. So a market which is too controlled makes those ADS1299 products from Texas Instruments less interesting for Swiss costumers like us which are used to open markets in Switzerland. Protectionism as well cartels have been eliminated in Switzerland, which makes us Swiss so competitive world-wide.
We are looking for alternatives to ADS1299 products, without finding those. Which let s assume that Texas Instruments takes advantage of a monopole position for these chip. And this makes these products unattractive for Swiss costumers like us.
And the situation if we as physiologists want to build our own device and want to choose the most cost-effective way is to buy products from www.openbci.com in the States and integrate these modules in our products. And that is not the the Swiss style. By principle we usually are not interested in special products with special contracts which make products expensive.
We as Swiss usually buy electronic components from China. And now we should buy ADS1299 products from Texas Instruments in the United States? Or we we have to negotiate with someone who always tries to make as much money as possible from an outdated architecture such as the ADS1299 EEG chip, outdated in times where InfluxDB is on the market since around 10 years, and hobbists all over the world use it with their Home Assistant fun devices. But for the physiologists, the situation is no fun at all, and we stay frustrated and keep our hands away from these products. This makes these products to products which will be replaced as soon as possible by other alternatives, which are diffiult to find. We do not believe that we will buy or build EEG devices with more than 16 EEG channels. Since all of these are not optimized for low-cost high-quality. And this does fit with our philosophy. And we still do not understand why there is no alternative for us which is really interesting than buying products from www.openbci.com. Costumers in Switzerland only rarely buy such products from this company. Developers at the university level use now InfluxDB. But hobbists which buy products from www.openbci.com are very rare in Switzerland. And this is for the reasons we have discussed here.