(Gadget) Introducing Emotiv Insight - the next generation brainwear

A sleek, multi-channel, wireless headset that monitors your brain activity and translates EEG into meaningful data you can understand.

Our mission to empower individuals to understand their own brain and accelerate brain research globally was set into motion with the launch of this Kickstarter campaign for Emotiv Insight. Over the course of this campaign, you joined our community and pledged to change how people think about their brain and how we could use brainwear to improve how we live, work, and play. 

With your support, you have helped us create the ultimate Brainwear™! Every Emotiv Insight will be made with a 6-axis inertial sensor and a 3-axis magnetometer. The Insight Extender will also include a microSD card reader. And, for the research crowd, we will also include an isolated TTL opto-coupled external event marker input channel to the Insight Extender. 

Thanks to you, we are making the Emotiv Insight a reality! Thank you again for being such an awesome community!

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single thought

The human brain, our most advanced organ, is an intricate and complex network of connections. Largely enigmatic, it’s our own personal machine that can extract patterns from overwhelming amounts of data. At Emotiv, we are pushing the frontier of gaining insights into the brain. Join us on this journey to unleash the power of the human mind.

What is the Emotiv Insight?

Emotiv Insight is a sleek, 5 channel, wireless headset that reads your brainwaves and a mobile app that translates those signals into meaningful data everyone can understand.

Emotiv Insight Mobile App (Android/iOS)

Emotiv Insight Mobile App (Android/iOS)

We’ve leveraged our knowledge and experience to create the next generation Brainwear™ that tracks and monitors your brain activity and gives you insight into how your brain is changing in real time. Emotiv Insight allows you to optimize your brain fitness & performance, measure and monitor your own or your family’s cognitive health & wellbeing, and develop amazing new applications.

The Emotiv Insight offers an inexpensive, uncomplicated way to regularly measure brain performance and is completely safe for children, adults of all ages, and those with medical conditions.

Based on community feedback, we recently added the Emotiv Insight in a new Stealth color option and additional reward tiers to give Kickstarter backers the chance to get your hands on these first, before general release. A huge thanks to our incredible design team,4Design, for the outstanding job in creating these photorealistic renders of what this Stealth version might look like, and for working around the clock to make this possible. What color will you choose?

Here's how it works

Our brains are made up of a hundred billion nerve cells called neurons. When neurons interact through a chemical reaction, they naturally emit a measurable, electrical impulse. Electroencephalography or EEG is the process of observing brainwaves through these pulses. 

Emotiv Insight measures your brainwaves and translates it into meaningful data to help you make the most of your cognitive performance. The Brainwear can measure, track and help you improve your Attention, Focus, Engagement, Interest, Excitement, Affinity, Relaxation and reduce Stress levels. 

With the free mobile app (Android/iOS) available with the Emotiv Insight, you'll get a much better idea of your daily productivity profile. When you're paying attention, the time of day and how long you can pay attention for, your interest levels, your bursts of focus. How well you can relax, your stress levels.

Research has shown that when you are made aware of all of these indicators, people are better informed and empowered to make decisions to optimize and improve their cognitive fitness and performance.

In addition, the brainwear 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. It also detects facial expressions such as blinks, winks, frown, surprise, clench and smile.

The team behind it

We are pioneers in this field. We are the inventors of the revolutionary, international award winning technology: the Emotiv EPOC brainwear (winner of Red Dot Design Award, AutoVision Innovations Award, Australian International Design Awards, Australian Engineering Excellence Awards) currently used by developers and researchers in more than 100 countries worldwide. 

Applications for the existing Emotiv brainwear technology span an amazing variety of industries, from gaming to interactive television, everyday computer interactions, hands-free control system, smart adaptive environments, art, accessibility design, market research, psychology, medicine, robotics, automotive, transport safety, defense and security. 

But that was just the beginning. 

What we're developing

We've listened to, engaged with and learned from our community; and for the past year, we embarked on an ambitious goal, to design a new headset from the ground up. It's sleeker, faster and smarter in an elegant, lighter and more user-friendly design. 

Emotiv Insight is the only brainwear 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 EEG data that will allow you to receive more in depth information on your brain activity. 

The Emotiv Insight uses a special polymer biosensor system that offers great electrical conductivity of the brain signals, but does not require any conductive gel or saline solution. So there's no preparation whatsoever. Yes, we said it, DRY SENSORS! 

Compatible with Android, iOS, OSX, Linux and Windows Platforms. 

Optional Accessory: Emotiv Insight Extender

We are thrilled to announce that we’re building what we think will be a great companion product for your Emotiv Insight: an external rechargeable battery pack, available in your choice of either "Stealth" Black or Classic White colour options.

The external rechargeable battery pack offers more than 12 additional hours of use in mobile mode or can be powered continuously when plugged into your PC USB port.

More details:

Pocket clip or lanyard device, plugs directly into your Emotiv Insight utility socket Five Red/Orange/Green Contact Quality LEDs - monitor your signal quality without a connection Charge and USB connection LEDs Multimode operation: 

Mobile mode: Provides more than 12 hours of extended operation Top-up of Emotiv Insight internal battery while operating from the Extender power pack Tethered mode: Powered directly from your PC USB port. Electrical isolation permits headset operation while connected to your PC. (For safety reasons the standard Emotiv Insight charge cable disables headset operation when connected in case your PC has an electrical fault) Mains-isolated data pass-through to your PC USB port - hard wired connection replaces the Bluetooth LE wireless connectionRecharge mode: Battery pack can be plugged into your PC or a standard phone charger for offline charging.

We’ve added new reward tiers so that you can reserve the Insight Extender with your Emotiv Insight immediately!

An SDK for Developers and Researchers

We wouldn’t have made it this far without our community of early adopters, developers, and researchers.

We’re offering a platform for you to conduct research and/or develop applications for the Emotiv Insight brainwear. This includes the necessary drivers, a fully specified API for application development and analysis tools for EEG research applications.

Plus, 6-axis inertial sensor

Thanks to all our backers, we made our one million stretch goal.  All Emotiv Insights will now come standard with a 6-axis inertial sensor (roll, pitch, yaw, vertical, lateral, longitudinal acceleration) at no additional cost.

3 axis gyroscope (roll, pitch, yaw) 250/500 degrees per second full scale range per axis - low resolution (8 bit) and high resolution (12 bit) modes via API call3-axis accelerometer (vertical, lateral, longitudinal acceleration) 2g/8g full scale range - low resolution (8 bit) and high resolution (12 bit) modes via API call

Emotiv Insight’s API and SDK for developers and researchers will also include gyro, mouse, and full head motion detection system linked to control outputs for application development.

Incorporation of these additional features to the Emotiv Insight now enables applications such as:

Short term full-space head tracking – plot the head trajectory and attitude through complex movementsCamera 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 vehiclesAutomatic recognition of gestures - nod YES, head shake NO, shrug and other gesturesRecognize, monitor, record and replay exercise, activityPossible extraction of respiration and heart rate using small scale periodic motion.Gait and tremor analysis

How others have used our technology

Across the globe, this technology has already been applied to a diverse range of application areas by people from all walks of life. From enabling a 6 year old child to create designs with their imagination to helping teachers and students in a classroom observe and understand learning, behaviour and social interaction. Fromcreating music with the power of your mind to driving a car with a simple thought. From controlling a robot to aiding in the physical and mental rehabilitation of people who have experienced a life changing event. We are opening up a whole new world of possibilities.

Technical Specifications

We need your help

Over the past 12 months, we've come a long way already in the development of the Emotiv Insight brainwear. The electronic, mechanical and industrial designs are far along. Our prototype is up and running.

With your help, we can: 

Convert our prototype to production-ready models and get all the regulatory approvals (CE, UL, FCC to ship our products worldwide)Deliver developer and research kits (for early developers & researchers so we can have even more applications on day one)Refine our manufacturing process and place our first production ordersFund the development of the SDK & APIs across Android, iOS, OSX, Linux and Windows platformsFund some initial application development

Reward Tiers

Production Schedule

Together, we can open up new possibilities

Our goal is to make this amazing brainwear technology available to everyone, everywhere and inspire others to use our tools to make great things for the good of humanity. The future is in our brains. With a little insight, we can begin to unlock the mysteries of the human mind.  

By supporting Emotiv Insight, you will become an important part of building revolutionary technology and be among the first to gain insight into your brain.

Risks and challengesLearn about accountability on Kickstarter

We are innovators & pioneers of this technology and have a track record of successfully delivering products to consumers worldwide. Our team has produced and tested prototypes of the EMOTIV INSIGHT neuroheadset and we have started designing the mobile application. We have been working with our manufacturing partners to mitigate the risks in volume production of these devices and are well positioned to execute our delivery plan. We have provided the Kickstarter community with a conservative estimate of when delivery of the neuroheadset can be expected.

Nevertheless, unforeseen challenges may present themselves as we seek certification approvals and finalize manufacturing capacity. We are committed to keeping you informed of our progress in the months following the campaign. In the event that unexpected issues arise in the delivery schedule, we will do our utmost to minimize the impact on our early supporters and dedicate ourselves to providing you with a great experience.

(Fact, Innovation) These Magnetic Nanobots Could Carry Drugs Into Your Brain.... The robots are coming from INSIDE the blood!

These tiny cages, each 100 microns long and 40 microns wide, may not look like much, but they are the new semi-trucks of targeted medicine delivery. Developed by a team of Chinese researchers, in conjunction with Swiss and South Korean institutes, the nickel-coated microbots are steered wirelessly by electromagnetic fields. Thanks to that external control, these microbots can carry precious cargo to exactly where the body needs it, in especially to sensitive places like brains or eyes.

Tiny robots swimming through blood for medical purposes are a relatively new phenomena. In 2011, researchers published a paper on miniscule motors that could propel such machines. Other microbots can carry medicine, but their spiral shape and smaller bodies limit how much can carry. Magnetically steered robots inside living animals have also been tested before.

What makes these microbots unique? Size! Zhang Li, a researcher on the project, explains that "a microbot is like a vehicle that ships drugs directly to the affected area. And I want to design a truck, not a car." Larger robots mean more medicine delivered. Human trials of these robots are likely decades away, but the robots have been tested in rabbits and mice.

A summary of the research was published in Advanced Materials in July, 2013.

(Fact) Stephen Hawking: brain could exist outside body

Stephen Hawking has said he believes brains could exist independently of the body, but that the idea of a conventional afterlife is a fairy tale.

Speaking at the premiere of a documentary film about his life, the theoretical physicist said: "I think the brain is like a programme in the mind, which is like a computer, so it's theoretically possible to copy the brain on to a computer and so provide a form of life after death.

"However, this is way beyond out present capabilities. I think the conventional afterlife is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark."

The 71-year-old author of A Brief History of Time, who earlier this week backed the right for the terminally ill to end their lives as long as safeguards were in place, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21 and given two to three years to live.

"All my life I have lived with the threat of an early death, so I hate wasting time," Hawking said on Thursday night, using the computer-generated voice he controls with a facial muscle and a blink from one eye.

The documentary explores the headlong rush of a brilliant schoolboy with illegible handwriting who enjoyed the dilettante life of Oxford University before illness sparked a lifelong frenzy of discovery about the origins of the universe, which began as a graduate at Cambridge University and has astounded the world.

The film premiered in the same year as the release of his autobiography, Stephen Hawking: My Brief History.

His sister Mary says in the film that her brother was highly competitive and curious about everything in a household which friends described as very academic, and explains how she received a doll's house as a present when they were children, to which Stephen immediately added plumbing and electricity.

She told Reuters that life with her brother was engaging, exciting and occasionally frustrating. "It's a waste of time arguing with Stephen, he always manages to turn the argument round," she said.

The film goes back to his childhood and his student days and shows the scientist, who uses a wheelchair, at home with carers. It also explores his family life with first wife, Jane, and their three children, the breakdown of their marriage and his subsequent marriage to one of his carers.

Jane appears on camera to explain how the pressures of caring for the children and the increasingly disabled Hawking became even worse once full-time nurses were brought into the home, obliterating any privacy.

His second wife and former nurse, Elaine Mason, does not appear in the film, and Hawking portrays their 1995-2007 marriage with a few pictures and a brief description.