I’m Dusan Stojanovic, and I’m a nutrition and supplement content specialist with over four years of experience and 1000s of articles under my belt about topics in the nutrition, supplement, and health and wellness space. I specialize in writing about supplements and how they can be used to optimize your health.
We published this article because we noticed the growing interest in meditation, focus, and productivity — and how EEG headsets could help — and wanted to create the most comprehensive source of information online about the subject, because it also happened to be in our wheelhouse. The Unwinder strives to publish high-quality, trustworthy information about ‘new wellness’ that its readers can use as a reference for making decisions about how they can best optimize their health.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as medical advice. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
EEG headsets track the electrical activity in your brain. Which one you buy depends on what you want to use it for.
EEG Headset Reviews: Our Recommendations At A Glance
Best 2-In-1 Sleep Tracker & Meditation Device
Muse S EEG Brain Sensing Headband
With a battery life of 10 hours and Bluetooth-enabled connectivity, the Muse S is one of the most convenient EEG devices on the market, and with the most features: assistance in sleeping, meditation, and heart rate monitoring among others. However, many user reviews complain about software bugs.
Best Rated EEG Headset
Muse 2 EEG Brain Sensing Headband
Although it has a shorter battery life than the Muse S and is not designed to track sleep, the Muse 2 is a great option for people who are looking for a more affordable EEG headset that provides real-time feedback on your brain activity, heart rate, breathing, and body movements to build a more consistent meditation practice.
Best Sleep Training Program
URGOnight Headband
URGOnight is an at-home training program that’s designed to improve sleep quality. It should be used 20 minutes a day, 3 times a week, and is backed by 4 years of research and development. Your training program is fully customized and before each session, the difficulty of your exercise will be adjusted according to your state of mind that day.
Best Upcoming Brand
Flowtime Biosensing Headband
Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to find good EEG devices on Amazon. While Flowtime is a lesser-known EEG headset, it can help you get detailed readings of your brainwaves, heart rate, attention, pressure levels, and more, and it isn’t plagued with bad user reviews about the software.
Best EEG Headset For Neurohacking
Emotiv EPOC X
Emotiv EPOC X is their flagship product, with 14 fixed sensors to accurately measure brain activity. It boasts a battery life of up to 9 hours, and is mainly intended for neurohacking. It requires a saline solution, which may be inconvenient for non-professional users. But overall, it takes around 5 minutes to set up, and is fairly easy once you get down the basics.
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Best EEG Headset For Beginners
Emotiv Insight
Insight is geared towards beginners, as it is much easier to use and doesn’t require gel or saline solution. With five 2D sensors, you can expect lower imaging resolution, but it’s still a good option for performance and wellness tracking.
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Best EEG Headset For Research
Emotiv EPOC FLEX
Emotiv EPOC FLEX is an excellent option for research purposes and is reserved only for the biggest DIY fanatics. This device is a lot more complicated to use, as sensors need to be manually configured like with medical EEG, and it uses saline solution or gel to set up. It has 32 channels that allow high-quality analysis, but it won’t matter much if you don’t know what you’re doing.
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Best Interactive Mind-Controlled Video Platform
MyndPlay EEG Brainwave Headset
MyndPlay EEG Brainwave headset offers access to an interactive mind-controlled video platform that allows users to interact with video games, apps, and movies with their minds. MyndPlay has a number of simple games that can keep you entertained while you work on your focus and relaxation.
Manipulating our body’s biology through biohacking is one way we can improve our experience of the world. Neurohacking, one of the forms of biohacking, has been particularly popular since the 80s. It refers to altering brain function to get a desired outcome, such as better focus, cognitive improvement, or creativity boost.
EEG headsets are neurofeedback devices that can help with neurohacking, as they have become commercially available in recent years. The idea is to give everybody a better insight into their brain and get some actual benefits like improved sleep, relaxation, and mental focus.
What Are EEG Headsets And What Are They Used For?
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method of tracking the electrical activity of the brain. It measures small voltage fluctuations that result from ionic currents in neurons. In layman’s terms, it measures brain waves.
EEG is commonly used for diagnosing epilepsy, sleep disorders, coma, brain death, encephalopathies, tumors, brain disorders, strokes, depth of anesthesia, and more. Some of these uses have decreased with the development of MRI and CT, but EEG remains a valuable diagnostic tool.
The medical EEG procedure typically requires a medical professional to place several gel-coated electrodes on a patient’s head. However, the new generation of consumer EEG headsets usually don’t require gel, and are much easier to use than traditional medical EEG.
EEG headsets are now widely used for improving focus and productivity, reducing anxiety, accelerating learning, relaxing before bed, improving sleep, and enhancing athletic performance.
Buying The Best EEG Headset: EEG Headset Reviews
You’ll need to do a bit of research to find the best EEG headset. First, figure out what you need it for. You won’t need a clinical-grade EEG headset if you are looking to unwind and practice meditation.
EEG headset price will be one of the main factors when making your selection, but don’t let it be the only one. You should consider how many sensors (channels) the set has, as it affects imaging quality. More is, in this case, better.
You should also consider the ease of use, app and device compatibility, whether it uses saline solutions, gels, or is labeled as a “dry eeg headset,” etc.
Muse EEG Headsets
Muse is probably the most popular EEG headset brand on the market and offers 2 main EEG headsets: Muse S and Muse 2. The main difference between the two seems to be in battery life, as Muse S can track your brain activity for up to 10 hours, to last through the whole night, while Muse 2 only has a battery life of 5 hours. Other than that, the two headsets mainly seem to differ in software, while the hardware is relatively similar. These headbands are perfect for beginners as they are fairly easy to use, but don’t expect high-level imaging as there are only four sensors. Both headsets can also monitor movement, heart rate, and breathing rate.
Best Overnight Sleep Tracker & Meditation Headset Device
Muse S EEG Brain Sensing Headband
With a battery life of 10 hours and Bluetooth-enabled connectivity, the Muse S is one of the most convenient EEG devices on the market. It also possesses among the most features available today including assistance in sleeping and meditation, as well as heart rate monitoring. among others.
Most Affordable EEG Headset From Muse
Muse 2 EEG Brain Sensing Headband
Muse 2 makes the perfect personal meditation assistant. Although it has a shorter battery life than the Muse S and is not designed to track sleep, it’s a great option for people who are looking for a more affordable EEG headset that allows you to take part in mind, heart, body, and breath meditations and receive real-time feedback on your brain activity, heart rate, breathing, and body movements to build a more consistent meditation practice.
URGOnight Headband
Best Sleep Training Program
URGOnight Headband
URGOnight is an at-home training program that’s designed to improve sleep quality. It should be used 20 minutes a day, 3 times a week, and is backed by 4 years of research and development.
Your training program is fully customized and before each session, the difficulty of your exercise will be adjusted according to your state of mind that day. URGOnight allows users to track their progress and also allows them to set reminders to complete their daily sessions.
The URGOnight Headband utilizes advanced EEG-based measurement with rapid signal transmission in milliseconds and has multiple adjustments for size, allowing it to fit all head shapes. It also contains gold-plated dry sensors, retractable sensor pins, and a hypoallergenic and durable silicon strap.
Flowtime EEG Headset
Helps for meditation
Flowtime Biosensing Meditation Headband
Flowtime is a lesser-known EEG headset available on Amazon that can help you get detailed readings of your brainwaves, heart rate, attention, pressure levels, and more. The idea is to read this data during meditation, using the feedback to help you reach a deeper meditative state.
The design is light and modern, so it’s comfortable to wear. A few users have reported problems with the app, but fortunately this can be improved through software patches.
Emotiv EEG Headsets
Emotiv is a well-known brand that offers several portable headband options. Their devices have been used in scientific experiments and showed high accuracy.
Emotiv’s Flagship Product
Emotiv EPOC X
Emotiv EPOC X is their flagship product, with 14 fixed sensors to accurately measure brain activity. It boasts a battery life of up to 9 hours, and is mainly intended for neurohacking. It requires a saline solution, which may be inconvenient for non-professional users. But overall, it takes around 5 minutes to set up, and is fairly easy once you get down the basics.
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Great for research purposes / expert users
Emotiv EPOC FLEX
Emotiv EPOC FLEX is an excellent option for research purposes and is reserved only for the biggest DIY fanatics. This device is a lot more complicated to use, as sensors need to be manually configured like with medical EEG, and it uses saline solution or gel to set up. It has 32 channels that allow high-quality analysis, but it won’t matter much if you don’t know what you’re doing.
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Best for beginners
Emotiv Insight
Insight is geared towards beginners, as it is much easier to use and doesn’t require gel or saline solution. With five 2D sensors, you can expect lower imaging resolution, but it’s still a good option for performance and wellness tracking.
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Best EEG Gaming Headset
Interactive mind-controlled video platform
MyndPlay EEG Brainwave Headset
MyndPlay EEG Brainwave headset offers access to an interactive mind-controlled video platform that allows users to interact with video games, apps, and movies with their mind. The headset responds to your brainwaves, and it produces an appropriate action that stimulates your brain to improve attention, encourage relaxation, lower anxiety, and improve mental health.
Although using EEG headsets as controllers for complex video games is still in the future– right now they lack the needed precision and fidelity– MyndPlay has a number of simple games that can keep you entertained while you work on your focus and relaxation.
NeuroSky EEG Headsets
EEG For Entertainment
NeuroSky Mindflex EEG Headset
Have you ever wanted to control things with your mind? Mindflex is a simple headset that allows just that, by using a simple EEG device as a controller for an electronic toy.
Once you put on the Mindflex headset, you’ll be able to move a ball over the game console using your mind. There are five challenging games available for 1 to 4 players, so you can play alone or with your friends. The goal is to move the ball through various funnels, hoops, hurdles, funnels, and other obstacles and test your speed and concentration skills.
Entry-level Neurohacking Headset
Neurosky Mindwave Mobile 2
The Mindwave Mobile 2 is another headset from NeuroSky, but this one is meant as an entry-level neurohacking headset. It features only one sensor, and is intended for total beginners and children, or people looking for a cheap EEG headset to start with.
Mindwave is an excellent cheap EEG headset that comes with tons of free and paid apps in their store, compared to most headsets that only feature one. You can find anything from games to apps that help you relax, reduce stress, improve focus, and more.
Interested in TDCS? Read our article on transcranial direct current stimulation devices.
Editor’s note: we are regularly updating this review. If you see any problems, weird interpretations of the data, or just want to say hi, please reach out to hello@the-unwinder.com.
