OpenBCI

OpenBCI is an open-source platform for EEG and biosensing hardware and software designed for researchers, educators, and hobbyists. The project provides hardware boards and supporting software that enable measurement and visualization of brain activity and other biosignals. The aim is to make brain-computer interface research more accessible through open designs and free tools.

Founded in 2014 by Joel Murphy and Conor Russomano in New York, OpenBCI released a family of products including the Cyton board, Cyton with Daisy expansion, Ganglion, and Ultracortex headsets. The Cyton board supports eight EEG channels (with an additional expansion to 16 channels via the Daisy module), and the Ganglion provides four channels. All boards are designed around the TI ADS129x family analog front-ends. Data can be streamed to a computer over USB or Bluetooth, depending on the board.

Software includes the OpenBCI GUI for real-time visualization and data recording, and BrainFlow, a cross-language library that provides a common API for Python, MATLAB, Java/Processing, and C++. The ecosystem emphasizes open data and interoperability across hardware revisions and other software tools. The platform is widely used in education, research projects, neurofeedback, and hobbyist experiments, enabling tasks ranging from EEG basic studies to brain-computer interface experiments.

OpenBCI publishes hardware designs and software under open-source licenses and maintains documentation and community forums to support collaboration and learning. The project has contributed to open-source neurotechnology by providing affordable, modifiable tools for signal acquisition and analysis.