Comparing Muse, Brainlink and other EEG headsets for meditation
Muse is a meditation headset that takes the EEG signals and transmits it via bluetooth to the phone. In this article we describe the headset and its experience compared to other comparable headsets.
Cost of Muse EEG headset
It cost $149 for the older version plus free delivery, for delivery to India from USA.. The latest version costs $249.
To this we have to also add the India customs fees of Rupees 6k around.
Feedback on meditating with Muse
I had some experience with meditating with the Muse headset.
Muse seems to be quite accurate in assessing the quality of the meditation session and even has a feedback component.
It has a connected app that does a guided meditation. If your mind is wandering during the meditation session while wearing the Muse connected to your phone and its associated app, you will hear the sound of thunder.
If during the meditation session with the Muse and its connected app, your mind is concentrated on the breath, you will hear a bird chirp in the connected app.
At the end of the meditation session, you get a report how the meditation session went.
Therefore, this real time sound feedback helps one to control the wandering mind and learn the skill of focusing on the breath and relax deeply. In this sense it is one of the best gadgets available for improving the meditation practice.
Comparison of Muse with other EEG wearable gadgets
This would be the fourth EEG gadget I have tried, after Neurosky mindwave, Emotiv EPOC, and Brainlink. I found #muse to be the best for meditation so far, followed by #Brainlink.
The Neurosky Mindwave EEG wearable gadget #Neurosky is the cheapest, which one can buy for only Rupees 12k from Amazon. There are dozens of connected apps for Neurosky that one can download from Android play store or from the neurosky website. The Neurosky gadget is likewise paired with the phone and communicates with the phone via Bluetooth. It gives a relaxation score and a meditation score in real time. One can do meditation as well as play a number of available games with this. However, Neurosky has only one sensor and has a delay in reporting changed brain state to the connected app. Also, it’s meditation reading wasn’t all that accurate when I tried it, but maybe they improved it in the later versions.
The Emotiv EPOC headset we had ordered in one of my previous companies for testing and making EEG based apps on the smartphone. I didn’t spend much time with Emotiv, but it was probably the most accurate due to having highest number of sensors, eight, and highest cost, $750 for a research license.
Brainlink is a China built EEG gadget which also is good for testing the quality of your meditation. Played with it back in 2016 thanks to my friend Koonlin in Hong Kong. It is also comparatively cheaper.
