New Delhi-based Upside Down Labs is gearing up to introduce a new sensing platform geared towards hackers, hobbyists, and other enthusiasts – the Neuro PlayGround Light. This latest offering from the company is aimed at brain-computer interface (BCI) projects and is called the Neuro PlayGround Lite (NPG Lite).
According to the company, the NPG Lite is a multichannel Feather-form-factor wireless bio-physiological signal acquisition board. It is capable of capturing signals from various bio-physiological activities such as electrocardiography (ECG), electromyography (EMG), electrooculography (EOG), or electroencephalography (EEG). The compact design of the board ensures portability, quick setup, and a clutter-free experience, making it suitable for research, education, and wearable applications.
The NPG Lite covers a wide range of activities including tracking heart, muscle, eye, and brain activities. Designed around the Feather form factor, it serves as a follow-up to Upside Down Labs’ previous creations such as the BioAMP EMG Pill, BioAmp BisCute, and BioAmp EXG Pill, all of which focus on various aspects of bio-signals tracking.
The board itself is powered by an Espressif ESP32-C6 RISC-V microcontroller with 8MB of flash memory. It also features single-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and IEEE 802.15.4 Thread- and Zigbee-compatible radios. With a three-channel amplifier to process electrical signals from the user, the board offers a breadboard-friendly pin layout that matches the Feather form factor. Additionally, it supports add-on boards, one of which is the NPG Playmate Vibz that provides vibration, buzzer, and electrode haptic feedback.
Upside Down Labs has already showcased four projects created using the NPG Lite, including a brain-computer interface. These projects demonstrate the board’s capabilities, such as a music creation platform based on muscle movements, a browser-based electrocardiogram heart monitor, a game trigger controlled by blinks, and a brain-computer interface that involves popping bubbles by maintaining a state of focus, monitored by tracking beta wave activity in the 12-30Hz range.
The company is planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign for mass production of the NPG Lite on Crowd Supply in the coming months. Interested individuals are encouraged to sign up on the campaign page to receive notifications once it goes live. Upside Down Labs has also committed to releasing schematics after all backers have received their hardware and plans to publish the source code on GitHub under the reciprocal GNU General Public License.
Overall, the Neuro PlayGround Lite holds promise for those interested in exploring brain-computer interfaces and other bio-physiological signal acquisition projects, providing a convenient and versatile platform for experimentation and development.