Upside Down Labs' Neuro PlayGround Lite Promises Hacker-Friendly Brain-Computer Interfaces
The company's new expandable Feather-format sensing board includes three channels for EMG, ECG, EOG, and EEG probes.
New Delhi–based Upside Down Labs is preparing to launch another sensing platform for hackers, hobbyists, and others — this time targeting brain-computer interface (BCI) projects: the Neuro PlayGround Light.
"Neuro PlayGround Lite (NPG Lite) is a multichannel Feather-form-factor wireless bio-physiological signal acquisition board," the company explains of its latest design. "It can be used for electrocardiography (ECG), electromyography (EMG), electrooculography (EOG), or electroencephalography (EEG). Its compact footprint and hassle-free setup ensure portability, quick deployment, and a clutter-free experience, making it ideal for research, education, and wearable applications."
Tracking heart, muscle, eye, and brain activity covers a lot of ground, and the NPG Lite does so in a compact board designed around the Feather form factor. It's a follow-up to Upside Down Labs' previous creations: the BioAMP EMG Pill and BioAmp BisCute, both targeting muscle-tracking electromyography, and the BioAmp EXG Pill, which handles the same ECG, EMG, EOG, and EEG targets as the new NPG Lite.
The board is built around an Espressif ESP32-C6 RISC-V microcontroller with 8MB of flash memory, single-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and IEEE 802.15.4 Thread- and Zigbee-compatible radios. There's a three-channel amplifier to handle the electrical signals coming from the user, while the breadboard-friendly pin layout matches the Feather form factor — and comes complete with support for add-on boards, with the company showing off a vibration, buzzer, and electrode haptic feedback add-on dubbed the NPG Playmate Vibz.
To illustrate its capabilities, the company has showcased short demos of human-computer interfaces (HCIs) built using the NPG Lite: a music creation platform based on the user's muscle movements; a browser-based electrocardiogram heart monitor; a game trigger based on the user's blinks; and an electroencephalographic brain-computer interface (BCI) in which bubbles are popped by maintaining a state of focus — tracked, the company says, by monitoring for beta wave activity in the 12–30Hz range.
The company is planning to crowdfunding mass production of the NPG Lite on Crowd Supply in the near future, with interested parties advised to sign up on the campaign page to be notified when it goes live; Upside Down Labs has also pledged to release schematics once all backers have received their hardware, with source code to be published on GitHub under the reciprocal GNU General Public License.
