// WIRED US/UK — GAMING
Exclusive: Neurable’s First Brain-Scanning Headphones Want to Fine-Tune Your Focus
Neurable unveiled its very own pair of brain-scanning headphones on Thursday, the Neurable One. The company claims that wearing them helps you concentrate on whatever you’re doing—working, studying, or playing a video game.
When I spoke to Neurable earlier this year, the company said it planned to license its brain-scanning technology to power a flood of gadgets that were ready to enter the market. But it decided to launch its own hardware first.
“We wanted to take the product in-house,” Ramses Alcaide, Neurable’s cofounder and CEO, tells WIRED. “There were a lot of areas where we wanted to improve the product, and we wanted to move at a much faster rate. It also puts a little more capability for us to be able to show off what’s possible with the technology.”
The Boston company has until now relied on other brands to showcase its brain-scanning technology in their products, all of which promise to help people improve focus and provide data about your brain activity in a companion app. It began a few years ago by building its tech into some Master & Dynamic headphones. At the start of this year, Neurable showed off a gaming headset with HP's HyperX featuring two electroencephalography (EEG) sensors built in.
Like the original M&D MW75 Neuro headphones, the Neurable One features 12 EEG sensors in the nylon earpads that are used to monitor brain waves. The headphones cost $499 and will be available in October from Neurable’s website.
The EEG sensors live in the specially designed earpads.
Alongside the new headphones is a new app (the old app will continue to exist for now for older hardware), which Alcaide says tracks eight brain metrics:
The biggest hardware and software change with the Neurable One is that you no longer have to start a session in the app to capture brain activity. Instead, the Neurable One passively monitors your brain as soon as you put the headphones on—Alcaide likens it to wearing a Fitbit.
At that point, the sensors begin monitoring your brain activity to measure your focus. When it detects that you’re getting distracted, the headphones play a ping to get you back on track. If it thinks you're burning out instead, it’ll recommend a break so you can come back later fully recharged.
The headphone-app combo works similarly to help you fall asleep and to meditate. For example, with meditation, you can follow a guided session, and when the headphones detect you’re in the flow, the guide will stop talking so you stay in that zone. If it detects you’re drifting away, it’ll start guiding you back again. For sleep—designed for naps rather than proper bedtime—it can, over time, lower the headset volume of guided naps or soundscapes as it detects you falling asleep. (You can also turn off the EEG sensors and just use them as regular headphones if you want.)