Smarter Life Challenge - Brainwaves based appliance controller - Update 3

RE: Smarter Life Challenge - Brainwaves based appliance controller - Update 3

cy.gul — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 04:22:41 GMT

Hi Cosmin,

Very excited to see this update! very space-age technology with all your brainwave sensing =)

A couple thoughts:

- you could consider having the PSoC 4 in the sensor itself, that way you could get rid of the amplifier you have in each sensor by using PSoC 4's Opamps. maybe helps with splitting the processing across 2 devices as well.

- there'a a PSoC 5LP on the Pioneer kit, which is the big brother of the PSoC 4 chip. Its Cortex-M3 based for some additional processing power and additional analog capabilities. But more importantly, the PSoC 5LP has a DFB (digital filtering block) that is basically a math co-processor that will allow you to filter out some of the noise issues you're seeing. There's also a very nice Digital Filter Component in Creator that help design filters with a simple GUI. here's more on the DFB: http://www.cypress.com/?rid=59626

good luck on your next steps!

RE: Smarter Life Challenge - Brainwaves based appliance controller - Update 3

vsluiter — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:06:28 GMT

Hi Cosmin,

Most consumer 'brainwave' detectors work by in fact monitoring your facial muscles; using more EMG than EEG, although most do not admit that. If you're pressing hard enough to think really really hard, you'll start squinting, and taddaaaah.... Brainwave (not! it was the squinting....).

The hard thing about EEG is that your skull and the fluid around your brain is actually shielding quite well. Although I appreciate your determination to not use gel, I would first skip that requirement and use some gel or moist to get good signals. Having done an EMG project in the last few weeks has shown me how much a bit of moist changes your signal. Using sandpaper to eliminate the upper skin layer improves the signal even more, but I understand when you don't want to do that :P

RE: Smarter Life Challenge - Brainwaves based appliance controller - Update 3

PaulMakesThings — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 03:44:33 GMT

That's still pretty awesome. I wonder if it could be used to detect REM sleep. What do you get if you move your eyes while they are closed? Can you try data logging while asleep to see what you get?

RE: Smarter Life Challenge - Brainwaves based appliance controller - Update 3

DAB — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 20:25:10 GMT

Hi Cosmin,

Have you looked into some of the commercial head sensors?

I picked up a head mounted system for a couple of hundred USD that included software to process the basic low frequency levels for identifying changes.

Another outfit has a head scarf type arrangement that also used dry sensors for collecting brain data.

Unfortuantely, I cannot remember the names, but I will check to see if I can find the information.

Good luck,

DAB