Opportunities and Challenges of Wearable EEG

This more holistic approach will allow us to move away from a typical patient situation and more towards the general health of people. We believe in the potential of personalised interventions, for example in sleep, where a device could assist sleep onset, waking up, and generally help to optimise and quantify sleep quality and the quality of life as a whole. And finally, we think that understanding the user better, will enable much better products and services that might be unrelated to health, for example a smart playlist in your music app that understands if you like what you hear.

All this being said, there are numerous challenges that come along with wearable EEG, but the largest and most difficult one to consider is the trade-off between data quality and the unobtrusiveness of the device. As I mentioned before, current solutions require the user to wear uncomfortable set ups which provide access to undeniably detailed data. However, to ensure widespread adoption of a wearable device that can be used in the way we propose, the form factor must be simple and easily integrated into current lifestyles. A great example of this is the invention of the smart watch. Watches have been around since the latter half of the 19th century, so the transition to include sensors and diagnostic tools was relatively smooth. However, there is not a standardised format for this people wear on or around the head. There are massive differences when it comes to culture, fashion, and form around the world.

Whatever we choose would need to be small, lightweight, comfortable, and it needs to easy to use so that a patient or consumer can operate it. The electrodes would need to be dry and reusable, but still provide good electrical contact. The whole thing needs to have an ultra-low power consumption because we want it to be wireless and it either needs to look cool or be almost invisible. The answer comes in the form of the fastest growing form factor in the world: Ear buds. Combined with reusable and reliable dry electrodes they provide the hardware platform to enable unobtrusive access to the brain.

At IDUN we believe we’ve already made strides to making this happen using our Guardian Development Kit. In a sleep study that involved overnight sleep recording and staging with our device in comparison with a gold standard Polysomnograph we achieved almost 80% agreement between the two methods, all while improving comfort, practicality, and moving closer to an easily integrated form factor.

This is just the start and with our next product, the IDUN Guardian Earbuds, we will optimise the design for sleep, but also complete the product with a software and cloud stack that allows to close the neurofeedback loop together with our intervention partners. Using the IDUN Guardian and the brain data it collects, they can improve their own products and services or develop their own neuroenhanced products to provide the user with interventions or feedback that empowers them in everyday life.