Kickstarter for $229 5-Channel Dry-Electrode Emotiv Brain Tracker

Quantified Self Apps & Tools
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A New Brain-tracking tool: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tanttle/emotiv-insight-optimize-your-brain-fitness-and-per

“EMOTIV INSIGHT is a sleek, 5 channel, wireless headset that reads your brainwaves and translates them into meaningful data everyone can understand.”

Key Benefits:

  • Tracks: Attention, Focus, Engagement, Interest, Excitement, Affinity, Relaxation, Stress
  • 5 EEG Dry Polymer sensors (just put the headset on your head, no prep time)
  • Raw EEG available in $429 Research edition of headset
  • Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android 4+

"EMOTIV INSIGHT is the only device on the market to offer 5 EEG sensors and 2 reference sensors, which provides useful coverage of key sites around the cerebral cortex: frontal cortex (executive functions), parieto-temporal (auditory, spatial/co-ordination), and occipital (visual). This spatial resolution is crucial to getting high resolution EEG data that will allow you to receive more in depth information on your brain activity.

Thought others might be interested. Cheers!

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Hey Jeff, welcome to the forum!
Thanks for this info, yes this is indeed of huge interest to many trackers!

The device seems sleek and comfortable, the key parameters (sampling rate, filtering, bluetooth 4 etc) are good. Also, in my breakout sessions, those who used Emotiv devices said good things about their quality. Seems like a neat device!

Nonetheless I’m having some doubts
about dry sensors, (will have to see it before I believe it)
the form factor (will it stay on the head and yet be comfortable?)
and the fact that you have to dish out a decent amount extra to access raw data. (see rant below)

Also, **bold statements **like [font=Courier]“The neuroheadset can measure, track and help you improve your Attention, Focus, Engagement, Interest, Excitement, Affinity, Relaxation and reduce Stress levels.”[/font]
and
[font=Courier]“the neuroheadset can understand and decipher basic mental commands. It can detect commands such as push, pull, levitate, rotate and even commands that are harder to visualize such as disappear.”[/font]
**make me suspicious. **
While the laboratory research is there, they promise to provide metrics for such complex cognitive states that are supposed to work for everyone. This is, in my experience, unrealistic.

Also: is this image intentionally suggesting that the EEG device has any utility while having a run on the beach? :slight_smile: Probably not…

[size=large]But I will never know. Since the device does not give me access to raw data without an additional sum of money, I will not buy, out of sheer defiance.[/size] What is it with this obsession of locking us out of using the data in any way we like?? Why should I pay more for the same exact product, just because I do not want to use their **** metrics? I actually want to use LESS of their product and have to pay MORE?
This should be the other way around! Those who spend their time increasing the usability of the device by writing neat scripts or documenting the cool stuff you can do with brainwaves should be rewarded instead of punished.

[size=x-large]Sorry for my rant! :slight_smile:
Actually I do appreciate the effort put in by the hard working people at Emotiv; the device looks nice & well thought out. [/size]
Also, after talking to some people during the last QS conference in September, I know that they probably would open it if they could, but investors do like business plans like this.

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Hey Martin, Thanks for the reply. Yes, I hope the dry sensors work well, so far the only other company that has had dry sensors are Neurosky which cost $199 when I bought it, and it was a metal sensor that was very uncomfortable on the forehead. We’ll have to cross our fingers with the polymer sensors, and hope they live up to their promise.

About pricing - in one sense it’s not too bad. Good, 2 channel devices EEG devices can cost upwards of $600 http://pocketneurobics.com/; so the neurofeedback community is used to paying high prices. I think they’re trying to segment the market so they can charge more for those who can afford it - since medical technology is often pretty expensive.

But you have a good point that the developers/raw EEG tinkerers may really add a lot of value to the market through producing new applications which could drive more sales. So keeping a higher price may end up being a net loss.

I know their Original Emotiv Epoch $299 consumer edition(http://www.emotiv.com/epoc/) ended up getting hacked, so people could circumvent the encryption and get the raw EEG from that version, instead of paying $750 for a research version. One nice thing is it sounds like with this device you can upgrade to a dev/research license at any time.

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Well there has been some progress in the field, especially when it comes to active electrodes, so our hope might indeed be warranted!
Someone recently wondered whether the NeuroSky device actually was a random number generator, so… :smiley:

Oh, the price it alright, I agree! On the other hand, most people in the neurofeedback community actually either make money using them, or really need the device because other methods have failed, while lot of us just want to play. :wink:

Good analysis, I completely agree!!

Yeah, I know of this hack and I’m confident that someone will actually hack it. It’s more a political decision for me. I have a couple of devices and we have nice EEG labs here at work.

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I was actually looking into ordering an Emotiv device any day now, but now have second thoughts. I was of the impression that you could collect data free of use. But what are the restrictions really? If you pay $429, then there won’t be any additional costs it seems. So it’s more like you get a discount if you don’t need the raw data.

It’s not very clear to me what the advantage of buying this new Emotiv Insight device is, compared to the Emotiv Epoch. All things considerd, the suspect marketing as well, I think I need to do some more background checks regarding what the product actually has to offer. Any winks in direction of user reports of the Emotiv Epoch are welcome!

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Which device did you want to get and what do you want to track/do? You might not actually need to spend that amount of money in order to get what you want.

Indeed it seems like if you pay the 429 you get full access to raw data as well as the SDK forever. Same probably applies once the cheaper device is hacked. I don’t know about the discount. That seems like a generous interpretation. :slight_smile: It’s more like you have to pay more if you want to make any improvements…

It seems like they streamlined it, to make it more attractive to consumers:
*Fewer channels means less stuff on your head and five channels are plenty for most purposes. The cover the most important areas but of course, if you want to actually compare them, all of the sensors have to work perfectly all the time.
*Also, bluetooth 4 is a definite advantage, less power consumption etc.
*If the dry electrodes actually work, this’ll also be an advantage compared to the old device.
*They also seem to have some internal processing to recognise facial expressions and generate metrics for attention etc (see above).
They use a lower sampling rate of 128 Hz, which also saves battery life as well as processing time and space while retaining the necessary temporal resolution. (Data is filtered to 48 Hz, 482 = 96 which is > 128/2 (Nyquist frequency) so the frequency spectrum is adequately represented. I’d like to see a 256 Hz, but 128 is alright.)

I’d really love to wear it during work and meditation for a couple of weeks and see how close the metrics come to my own introspection and what additional info can be learned that elude me.
IF the metrics are any good, the resulting data will sure be fun to look at!

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I bought the original emotiv a while back but found it inconvenient to use due to having 14 sensors where you would need to screw in the sensor heads and wet them with a saline solution to get proper conductivity. Then you had to place them on the head, and try to make sure all of them had good contact which could take a few minutes of fiddling. So if you’re really interested in getting a complete picture of the brain for EEG research or advanced neurofeedback the original Emotiv Epoc looks like the way to go because of the 14 sensors, but it’s no winner on ease-of-use.

But for simple put it on the head convenience of dry electrodes the Emotiv Insight looks like a big step forward (if it works out as described). Another thing - As far as I know, the original Epoc DOES NOT connect to smartphones, but the Insight will connect to Android and Iphones which means that you could do tracking without being tethered to a Windows PC.

Also, their strech goal of $1,000,000 will add a 6-axis inertial sensor which could allow for some more data collection:
“Short term full-space head tracking – plot the head trajectory and attitude through complex movements
Camera and motion control for navigation and control in real and virtual environments – full control of 3D cursor in CAD package, flight simulators, head mounted mouse, remote controlled vehicles
Automatic recognition of gestures - nod YES, head shake NO, shrug and other gestures
Recognize, monitor, record and replay exercise, activity
Possible extraction of respiration and heart rate using small scale periodic motion.
Gait and tremor analysis”

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For a starter I was also interested in using it practicing meditation, and just to play around with to see what it could bring. Time is scarce, but eventually I hope to design some research to conduct on my self, collecting data for analytic insights.

I was actually also thinking about using it at work, to track performance and/or stress, but I put that idea behind me as I’m not sure how my colleagues and leaders will interpret such actions.

I’ll give it another couple of days before I order. Thanks for the advice Jeff.