Neurable licenses BCI technology to flood consumer wearables with brain-scanning capabilities

BCI startup Neurable looks to license its 'mind-reading' tech for consumer wearables | TechCrunch

BCI (brain-computer interface) technology -- in which neural signals are routed from a person's head to a computer -- was once the stuff of science fiction, but these days the technology represents a competitive corner of the tech industry. One of the companies racing to commercialize BCI is Neurable, which this week announced that it's looking to license its "mind-reading" technology to consumer wearables. Neurable specializes in "non-invasive" BCI, which distinguishes itself from firms like Neuralink -- the Elon Musk-founded startup known for inserting computer chips directly into people's skulls -- in that its product doesn't require users to undergo brain surgery to enjoy its benefits. Neurable's technology works through a combination of EEG sensors and signal processing that can scan a user's brain activity, analyze it with AI, and provide information about a person's cognitive performance. In December, Neurable raised $35 million in a series A, which it plans to use to scale the commercialization of its technology. This week, the company announced that, as part of its expansion effort, it is looking to license its technology to a variety of consumer-facing companies. The idea is that mind-reading tech (which can provide detailed data about how a person's brain works while they're engaged in various activities) could be integrated into wearables across a number of industries -- including health and athletic products, productivity tools, and gaming. "Through Neurable's licensing platform, OEMs can directly integrate its AI-powered brain-sensing technology into existing hardware, such as headphones, hats, glasses, and headbands, while maintaining full control over product design, user experience, and distribution," the company said in a press release on Tuesday. Neurable has already fostered partnerships with a number of companies to test out its effectiveness. This includes HP Inc.'s HyperX, a gaming brand, with which it created a headset designed to help gamers "level up their game play by optimizing focus and performance." It has also partnered with a company called iMotions, a software platform that specializes in human behavior research, to assist with the company's research initiatives. In an interview, Neurable's CEO Ramses Alcaide declined to say what new partnerships the company has in the works, but said that the company was seeking to expand its purview across a host of domains. "In the past, we were very specific about our partnerships," Alcaide said, noting that Neurable tended to home in on a particular company to prove that a unique commercial application was worthwhile. Now that they know expectations can be met on a number of fronts, the startup is focused on scaling itself, he said. "What we're doing now is we're basically saying, like, 'Hey, we've demonstrated that we're getting great traction'," Alcaide said. "Like, let's make this as ubiquitous as heart rate sensors on your wrist, right?" Despite the "non-invasive" label, brain data is arguably a little bit more intimate than the information culled from a heart rate sensor, so what kind of privacy protections does a company like Neurable provide? Alcaide said that the company ensures that user data is "protected and anonymized." The company's privacy policy provides a variety of different guidelines for when and how a user's data might be accessed and used. "We make sure we follow HIPAA standards, like we've gone above and beyond where a lot of startups would be at our stage to make sure that we protect the data, we encrypt it, and that we anonymize it," Alcaide said. Does Neurable leverage a user's neural data to train its AI software?, we asked. "We can with user consent, right?" said Alcaide. "But we do it in a very specific way." That specific way involves asking the user whether their data can be used for the purposes of particular experiments, Alcaide said. "We are not collecting the data, just training on it willy nilly," he said. In other words, this kind of data usage is quite targeted. Alcaide said that his industry is at an "inflection point" -- one wherein there finally exists "a real business model in neuro-technology that is scalable." What comes after that inflection point is the big question.

Get Ready for More Brain-Scanning Consumer Gadgets

Neurable, which makes noninvasive brain-computer interfaces, is licensing its technology and promises a "flood" of new third-party hardware this year and next. The next gadget you put on your head could scan your brain. Neurable, a Boston-based company that embeds its noninvasive brain-scanning technology into hardware to monitor a person's focus levels, announced on Tuesday that it is transitioning to a licensing platform model. By certifying third parties, Neurable expects its tech to be in a "flood" of consumer gadgets this year and next. Neurable has until now focused its efforts on a pair of consumer-grade headphones -- made in partnership with audio brand Master & Dynamic. It also has a contract with the US Department of Defense to see how its technology can monitor blast overpressure and potentially help diagnose mild traumatic brain injuries in soldiers. With the licensing model, we could see more of Neurable's tech in everyday head-based wearables. The headphones use built-in electroencephalography (EEG) sensors to monitor brain waves. That information is sent to a companion app and lets wearers know when they need a "brain break," nudging them to take a breather before they feel burnt out to maximize productivity. The app also lets users discover their cognitive readiness for the day, their brain age, and other metrics, such as mental recovery, cognitive strain, and anxiety resilience. WIRED staff writer Emily Mullin tested the original headphones in 2024, though she found it difficult to verify the accuracy of Neurable's algorithms. Now, HP-owned gaming brand HyperX is releasing a gaming headset with Neurable's technology, and it's all about improving human performance while esports gaming. The headphones are purported to help wearers ease into the right state of mind for the best performance. Ramses Alcaide, Neurable cofounder and CEO, tells WIRED that the company has published a white paper showing improved performance among gamers using Neurable's tech, with reduced response times in first-person shooter games and a small increase in accuracy. The improvements may sound minor, but milliseconds are precious in the fast-paced world of esports gaming. And Alcaide says it could translate similarly to other fields: It could help a student reduce anxiety before an exam, while athletes could condition their nerves ahead of a race or game. Neurable is hardware-agnostic; Alcaide says it can be embedded in headphones, smart glasses, hats, or helmets. "There's a whole landscape of technology that touches your head that's yet to be embedded with our platform," he says. He likens it to when Fitbit made the idea of a wrist-worn heart-rate tracker popular. In the beginning, no one knew how fitness wearables would be received, but now no one blinks an eye at one on a wrist. Soon, no one will think twice about brain-scanning tech in headphones -- or, at least, that's the idea. Neurable's tech is "invisible" in these types of gadgets. Companies licensing Neurable's tech can integrate it into existing hardware, Alcaide says, and will control the entire experience from product design to the software experience; these products will be advertised as "Powered by Neurable AI." The user data still flows to Neurable's servers for processing, but Neurable sets the data privacy protections. User identifiers are separated from the data, and while partner companies host the user-facing layer, Neurable says it keeps control of the underlying system and data handling. Neurable has previously said its business model is not to sell user data. "Any time there's a new transition to technology, there's always going to be some anxiety," Alcaide says. "We've been very careful when it comes to that transition. We're protecting the data, being as ethical as possible." Neurable is one of many brain-computer interface (BCI) companies in the growing category. Elemind uses EEGs to improve sleep quality, and Sabi wants to turn thoughts into text. Even Apple filed a patent for EEG-sensing AirPods, though they're not yet available.