Tutorials

Tutorials

BrainAccess HALO Setup

Turn on the device by touching the touch button on the right side box. Once turned on the blue LED should start breathing. If the red LED also starts blinking, it indicates that a battery needs charging, please charge it first. Then follow these steps below to set up the HALO band for EEG measurements.

  1. Take the handband with each hand holding the side boxes as shown in the photo. Use your thumbs and index fingers to push out the back part of the band and hold it.
Tutorials - BrainAccess®
  1. Position the front part of the band on the forehead and pull the whole band backwards (still holding the extended back part of the band with your fingers). Pull as much as needed so that the back part could be easily lowered without back electrodes touching the head.
Tutorials - BrainAccess®
  1. Lower down the headband. It should be extended enough, so that the back electrodes do not touch the head, otherwise the back electrodes may get stuck in hair or brush through the skin. Once lowered to the correct position, slowly release the band so that the back electrodes start touching the skin. If needed, move the back part slightly up and down so that the spikes of the electrodes go through hair and touch the skin.
Tutorials - BrainAccess®

Important! Do not try lowering the band by simply pulling the devices downwards on the head. Extend the back and front parts of the band first before lowering down as explained in the previous steps.

Tutorials - BrainAccess®

Follow the tutorial for BrainAccess Board to connect the HALO device to the computer and start streaming and recording EEG data.

BrainAccess Standard Kit Setup

BrainAccess CAP has smaller and larger holes. Smaller holes should be used for electrode attachment to the cap and larger holes for the cables to pass from the inner part of the cap to the outer. The BrainAccess Standard Kit comes with 8 dry-contact electrodes with spring loaded spikes and 2 dry-contact electrodes with pads that are mounted at forehead positions. Follow the steps below for setting up the cap.

  1. Mount BrainAccess MINI electroencephalograph at the back of the cap using velcro tape.
  2. Place the electrode at the desired location and use the clip to attach the electrode to the cap.
  3. Connect one end of the provided ultra-mini coaxial cable to the socket on the electrode.
  4. Pass the other end of the cable through the nearest larger hole to the outer side of the cap and connect to the BrainAccess MINI. 
  5. Repeat steps 2-4 until all the required electrodes are installed on the cap.

Note: The standard BrainAccess setup with electrode positions and corresponding input channels on the BrainAccess MINI are given below. Use cables of appropriate length when connecting electrodes to MINI.

BrainAccess cap
BrainAccess cap
BrainAccess electrode mounting
BrainAccess electrode mounting
Standard BrainAccess setup. Electrode positions and corresponding channels on BrainAccess MINI
Standard BrainAccess setup. Electrode positions and corresponding channels on BrainAccess MINI

Bias – Fp2

Reference – Fp1

0 – F3

1 – F4

2 – C3

3 – C4

4 – P3

5 – P4

6 – O1

7 – O2

Follow the tutorial for BrainAccess Board to connect the MINI device to the computer and start streaming and recording EEG data.

Starting up with BrainAccess Board

This introductory tutorial demonstrates how to connect to BrainAccess devices and how to use BrainAccess Board to start streaming and recording data.

Bluetooth Pairing

  1. Push the power button on the BrainAccess device and hold for a couple of seconds, the blue LED should start breathing once the device is on.
  2. Plug in the provided Bluetooth adapter to your computer, the drivers should install automatically. Skip this step if using an integrated or some other pre-installed Bluetooth adapter.
  3. This step is for Windows only. Open ‘Bluetooth & other devices’ settings. Click ‘Add Bluetooth or other device’ icon and the BrainAccess device should appear on the list. Connect to it and close the settings window. The device is now paired with your PC and you will not need to repeat this step again. 

Connecting and Streaming

If you haven’t done this already, download the BrainAccess Board application from the Download Centre (link). Start the BrainAccess Board and after some initialization (first time takes longer) an interactive web page will open. Follow the steps below to start streaming from the device. 

Configuration tab of the BrainAccess Board
  1. Choose the ‘Configuration’ tab and the window as shown above will appear.
  2. Select BrainAccess as source.
  3. Press ‘Scan for devices’ and after a while all BrainAccess devices that are paired to the computer will appear on the list.
  4. Select the device that you wish to connect to. 
  5. Press ‘Connect’ and the device should appear under the ‘Connected Devices’ list. The data is now being streamed to the computer.
  6. Press the ‘graph button’ on the listed device which will open an EEG viewer and allow you to check the EEG and/or other sensor signals.

If you wish to stop streaming and disconnect from the device, simply press the ‘remove’ button on the listed device.

Changing Advanced Settings

Expand the ‘Advanced’ settings section if you wish to configure the device or other parameters. These settings are pre-populated with default parameters and could only be changed before connecting to the device.

EEG channel labels, gain and on/off state could be changed as required. In addition, the data stream to Lab Streaming Layer (LSL) can be enabled (default) / disabled here. The COM port that the particular device is paired to is also shown here, which helps identifying a particular BrainAccess device if multiple devices are used.

Data Recording

The stream can be saved to the database, enter required details in the ‘Data Recorder’ section and press ‘Start recording’. The data streams from all the listed devices will be collected and saved to the file. The data is saved in an internal format, which could be later converted to standard EEG formats such as EEGlab, MNE_fiff, etc. using ‘File Converter’ App.