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

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How to connect a Cyton board to a Raspberry Pi to use it as a mobile ECG device?

Posted bypg@petergamma.org 3 Comments on How to connect a Cyton board to a Raspberry Pi to use it as a mobile ECG device?

Last Updated on August 20, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

  • We suggest to connect the OpenBCI Cyton board for instance to a battery powered Raspberry Pi.
  • For safety reasons do not connect it to a PC which is connected to a high voltage power source.
  • We can run OpenBCI GUI or Python code on a Raspberry Pi.

1. Connection options for the cable version

  • For the OpenBCI cable version which starts at 230 USD on Ebay and Aliexpress
  • The BrainFlow documentation says it is possible to connect over a serial port to BrainFlow according to the following initialization Example:

params = BrainFlowInputParams()

params.serial_port = “COM3”

board = BoardShim(BoardIds.CYTON_BOARD, params)

https://brainflow.readthedocs.io/en/stable/SupportedBoards.html#cyton

  • in BrainFlow we have for instance Python examples:

https://brainflow.readthedocs.io/en/stable/Examples.html

But we do not know of anybody who uses the OpenBCI GUI with a cable connection. We did not find any information about that BrainFlow works over a cable as well.

2. Connection options for the Bluetooth version

  • Connection over Bluetooth for the Cyton is not mentioned in Brainflow, but we found a link to the Bluetooth version, therefore we suppose it works with Bluetooth.

3. Connection options for Cyton with WIFI shield

  • www.OpenBCI.com does not offer the WIFI shield anymore, but it is available in combination with the Cyton board here and should be free from issues:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284876280716?hash=item4253f3138c:g:CLoAAOSwpepiu~95&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAABIMgG4qLvVaorVIcocrfwsuVbY%2B5%2F%2BQOX3KiVShIc2Zxrz264L%2BNpKIdtZl5tbY2%2F0QxyvNqAGgjptpBeTn7j%2BlLnOH6NK9BdTVnY43ToEVqVLm3goyQ7XfsXUaYedbyrtT%2BmZI3xa%2BCPC%2FpMMTMK1IKLZ6Osq3IxbmBxsZ6AMcivACUGeI4uccAetnnxZl3t2OzvTjKH%2B9EIsN6N6J132iLERnMpRg9loF27c9%2FQfSaG9%2BTsmAbQCptBn0j2r%2BgCI6ioYaGNFX8ltxm0LkGuwGh10RviTWLY0Kv7TqOJIH1Vy8PGXd6ByVimmY2Jnz0yXlMxa6VKxHuzTJ47m2HfbC9u1KhzPmAamhEm7GUS8fZK5mgkldJjoCZuRpGLiYFg3A%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABFBMjqny-fBh

  • The WIFI version can be connected to the OpenBCI GUI according to the following instruction:

The relaxed speaker of this video is Neurosity CEO, computer scientist & WIFI shield developer A. J. Keller. As we can see in this video, it is really simple to connect to OpenBCI GUI over the WIFI shield.

  • OpenBCI Cyton with WIFI can also be connected to BrainFlow:

https://brainflow.readthedocs.io/en/stable/SupportedBoards.html#cyton-with-wifi-shield

  • OpenBCI GUI is simpler for beginners than BrainFlow.
  • We can see here for instance an example for a 3 channels of ECG in OpenBCI GUI:

https://docs.openbci.com/GettingStarted/Biosensing-Setups/ECGSetup/

  • In contrast, Brainflow offers examples for Python as we have already mentioned above:

https://brainflow.readthedocs.io/en/stable/Examples.html