Hearables: In-Ear Multimodal Brain Computer Interfacing

The Brain Computer Interface (BCI) of the near future must be suitable for widespread use in real-world environments. As such, it will be robust, portable, user friendly and discreet—and ideally wearable. In addition, for ‘affective’ functionality, standard electroencephalogram (EEG) based BCI needs to be augmented with sensors for other physiological modalities. Our generic ‘Hearables’ earpiece, equipped with miniature multimodal sensors, provides such a multimodal solution for reliable measurement of both neural activity and vital signs. Real-world viability is demonstrated through single-channel, multimodal digital noise removal in the EEG, standard BCI responses and more than 100 h of out-of-clinic sleep analysis. The benefits of collocated, multimodal sensing of the neural function and vital signs within our Hearables are demonstrated to extend beyond the enhancement of current BCIs, and into BCI-enabled eHealth. Finally, the advantages of our device are validated in an ‘affective’ BCI setting—where both the mental and physical state of the user is integrated through simultaneous monitoring of brain and vital functions.