It might end up slightly cheaper. They use the ADS1299 Analog-to-Digital Converter, which is $40 (DACs are usually one of the largest costs of BCIs). So it seems like the all-in cost won’t be much cheaper than OpenBCI.
Hopefully I’m wrong and someone will correct me because I’d love to see a research-grade BCI for ~$100-$200 (not sure about Muse 2 but my neuroscientist friend called Muse 1 “a fun toy, but still a toy”… sadly that’s the closest I’ve found so far.)
dunno about signal or clock quality though. (i suppose that's a function of the intan package)
There was a lot of exciting stuff being worked on 2007-2010 in that field.
still an order of magnitude cheaper than the systems i knew and open source to boot.
It's just very hard to sustain a business on one-off low volume hardware sales so the prices on the official site are relatively high compared to BOM (but perfectly reasonable and necessary to sustain further R&D).
It seems many hobbyists will buy off aliexpress while institutions / researchers tend to get the "official" hardware.
If you're happy with 8 channels wired (run laptop off batteries and use a good USB opto-isolator...) then you can get that right now for about 200 USD (not including headware).
(Note: better to get a 32-bit board not 8-bit one).
I run a low-volume open source hardware business[1] and honestly don't buy this argument at all.
So many OSHW businesses have absolutely woeful logistics that treats every single person outside of the US (or occasionally EU) as an afterthought.
This both what drives up the cost and pisses people off enough to create a sustainable business model for the boys in Shenzhen.
People aren't going to support your business if you ask insultingly high shipping prices or are constantly out of stock.
Based on your background I expect you have more insight than me, but I do wonder if they have deliberately abandoned the low end of the market to Shenzhen to avoid cannibalising (much more profitable) institutional sales.
Give in to your urges! Only material consumption can bring happiness! :P
>I do wonder if they have deliberately abandoned the low end of the market to Shenzhen to avoid cannibalising (much more profitable) institutional sales.
I wouldn't be super surprised by that. I've been on both sides of the fence there and whether or not the product itself is good value tends to be much less important than whether or not the sales process makes the purchasing department feel important.
Also funny you bring up the Muse, as I actually worked there a few years back. The Muse 2 is a reasonable increase in signal fidelity though with a tradeoff in that it has more issues in adverse environmental conditions (sweat etc). The main difference between the generations is in usability on the consumer end, which is the target market for the device. It was never intended to be a research tool, and it excludes many of the important electrode locations for research. For that reason, calling it a toy is roughly accurate in my opinion.
open access here)
[1] https://openbci.com/