A Preliminary Survey on the Perception of Marketability of
Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) and Initial Development of
a Repository of BCI Companies
F. Nijboer1, B. Z. Allison2, S. Dunne3, D. Plass-Oude Bos1, A. Nijholt1,
P. Haselager4
1Human Media Interaction, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands
2Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria
3Starlab, Barcelona, Spain
4Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the
Netherlands
femke.nijboer@utwente.nl
Abstract
The marketability of BCI applications may greatly influence the decisions of goverments,
the industry and academia. In this paper we first explored with a survey when respondents
(N = 145), who were present at the 4th International BCI Meeting, expect that different
BCI applications will become commercially available. Second, we surveyed how well existing
BCI companies are known to respondents. Third, we compared the findings with our own
preliminary overview of the marketability of BCIs and our repository of 28 companies. Re-
spondents were optimistic about the marketability of BCIs for healthy users and users who
need assistive technology (AT), but 72.4% of the respondents was unaware that companies
already exist which market BCI’s. Based on a preliminary market overview we cautiously
suggest that optimism in relation to applications for healthy users is more appropriate than
in relation to BCI-based AT. In future we plan surveys among a broader range of stakeholders
and more profound analyses of the market.
1 Introduction
Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research is rapidly increasing, with considerable enthusiasm
for applications for users with and without physical disabilities [1, 2]. A roadmap for BCI re-
search and development could help address emerging markets and opportunities. The future
Brain/Neuronal Computer Interaction project (fBNCI; http://future-bnci.org/) aims to de-
velop such a roadmap by drawing on the expertise of BCI researchers, as well as many other
stakeholder groups, including companies, end users, patient organizations, policy makers, and the
general public. One focus of the roadmap is to evaluate the marketability of current and future
BCI applications. Hence, we surveyed researchers on the marketability of BCIs at the 4th Inter-
national BCI Meeting, which took place at the Asilomar conference centre in June 2010. This
conference provided an excellent opportunity to engage many qualified respondents, although it
has to be noted that many other qualified respondents (e.g. from the field of human-computer in-
teraction or ambient intelligence) do not typically attend this meeting which may bias our findings
(see Section 5). Other results from this survey and more demographical data of the repondents
are available elsewhere ([3]) and under review ([4]).In this paper we focus on three aspects of the
survey. First, we explored when respondents expect that different BCI applications will become
commercially available (see Section 3.1). Second, we surveyed how well existing BCI companies are
known to respondents (see Section 3.2). Third, we compared the findings with our own preliminary
overview of the marketability of BCIs and our repository of companies (see Section 3.3).
344
5th Int. BCI Conference 2011
2 Methods
A total of 145 (105 males, 39 females) out of 289 conference attendees responded to the questions
about the marketability of BCIs. Seventy three persons were aged between 18 and 30, sixty-nine
persons between 31 and 55 and two persons were aged between 56 and 70. The sample consisted of
experts from various disciplines (e.g. neuro-, computer or cognitive scientists, electrical engineers,
psychologists etc). One participant did not give demographical data.
Participants completed an online survey that included four questions on the expected mar-
ketability of different purpose BCIs. In the survey, for convenience, we ordered some BCI types
based on their function: 1) BCIs for healthy users, 2) BCIs as AT, 3) BCI-controlled prostheses
and 4) BCIs as therapy tools.
Specifically, participants were asked to indicate when they expected to see these types of BCI
systems to become available on the market. Participants could choose from 5 answer options:
“never”, “between 0–5 years”, “between 5–10 years”, “more than 10 years” or “it already exists on
the market”. Participants who indicated that this type of BCI already exists on the market were
asked which group or company offers the product.
Only companies which offered BCI products and services were included in the repository.
Thus, companies supplying hardware and software needed for BCI research were not included.
The repository was build through: 1) web searches, 2) written and verbal interviews of experts
and 3) iterative postings on LinkedIn groups (“brain-computer interface group”, “neuromarketing”
and “BrainGain”).
3 Results
3.1 Respondents’ Expectancies of Marketability of BCI
Table 1 presents the respondents’ expectancies per BCI class.
BNCI technology for: on market 0–5 yrs 6–10 yrs > 10 yrs never # of resps
healthy users 26.6% 44.8% 13.8% 12.4% 1.4% 145
users who need AT 16.6% 42.1% 33.8% 7.6% 0.0% 145
users who need prostheses 0.7% 20% 43.4% 34.5% 1.4% 145
users who need therapy 9.9% 39.4% 39.4% 10.6% 0.7% 142
Table 1: Overview of percentage of respondent which indicated when BCI applications will enter
(if ever) the market for healthy users, users who need AT, prostheses and therapy. The last column
shows the number of respondents (# of resps) who rated the item.
3.2 Respondents’ Knowledge About Existing Companies
Thirty-two respondents reported which companies they knew that already marketed BCI’s for
health users. By far the best known companies are Neurosky (counted 13 times) and Emotiv
(counted 14 times). Other companies that were mentioned: Hitachi, Ambient, OCZ technology,
Starwars Science, Mattel, inc., g.Tec, Brain Actuated Technologies, InteraXon, Zeo, inc. and In-
teractive Productline. Twenty-two respondents reported which companies they knew that already
marketed BCIs as AT. The best-known company is g.Tec (counted 16 times). Other groups and
companies that respondents listed were: Ambient, Brain Actuated Technologies, OpenVibe and
BCI2000. Nine respondents commented that they knew BCI’s as therapy tools already are on the
market, but only two gave concrete company names: Brain master Technologies, inc. and EEGinfo.
None of the respondents identified a company that already markets BCI-based prostheses.
345
5th Int. BCI Conference 2011
3.3 Preliminary Overview of Companies and Marketability
We summarized a preliminary overview of 28 companies related to Brain-Computer Interfacing
(see Figure 1), which we expect to be more complete at the time of the Graz conference. Currently,
neurofeedback companies are not yet listed in the repository. We invite all readers to comment on
this overview and continue completing and criticizing the overview so we can offer the European
Commission the most accurate summary possible. This overview currently shows that as many
as 10 companies market BNCI’s for entertainment and gaming. Six companies offer BNCI as AT,
although two of these companies (Neural Signals, inc and BitBrain) do not yet market products.
However, there is a big difference in the number of products sold between the two markets.
Neurosky, for example, has sold approximately 1million Mindsets, whereas g.Tec has sold between
30–40 Intendixes (personal communication). Our survey did not address neuromarketing. We
counted six companies in this area. BCI researchers (N = 144) have divided opinions on whether
neuromarketing technologies do (35.4%) or do not count (47.9%) as BCI systems (Nijboer et al,
in review). Nevertheless, neuromarketing developments influence BCIs, and it is predicted that
this market will grow tremendously [2, 5]. Finally, two companies (Brain Fingerprinting inc. and
No Lie MRI) provide BCI services for criminal investigation.
http://future-bnci.org/
BNCI
technologies
health
sector
entertainment
sector
financial
sector
ICT
educational
sector
neuromarketing
serious games
humancomputer
interaction
multimodal
interaction
gaming
art
science
realtime
analysis
neuroeconomics
Interactive
Productline
Zeo, inc.
Neurosky
Emotiv Mattel, inc.
Uncle Milton
PLX
BCI net
Mind
technologies
Neuro-insight
The Mindlab
Sands
technologies
Cortech
solutions
Emsense
safety
security
jurisdiction
BitBrain
technologies
InteraXon.
InteraXon.
nutrition
g.Tec
Brain actuated
technologies
Ambient
wellness
prevention
monitoring
therapy
assitive
technology
addiction
disorders
Neural
Signals, inc.
image
detection
BitBrain
technologies
ambient
intelligence
Brainfingers
Brain Fingerprinting
Laboratories, Inc.
Starlab
Starlab
No lie MRI
Starlab
neurofocus
Advanced
Brain
Monitoring
NeuroVigil,
inc.
Figure 1: Preliminary overview of existing companies.
4 Discussion and Conclusion
The survey results show that respondents were generally optimistic about the near-term mar-
ketability of BCI’s for healthy users and user in need of AT. Repondents were slightly less opti-
mistic about BCIs for therapy and expect BCI-controlled neuroprostheses to require more than
10 years to enter the market. Our preliminary overview shows that companies - more than respon-
dents realize - already market BCIs for healthy users and users who need AT. However, having
a product on the market does not yet mean that a product is sold successfully. BCI research
toward AT has a history of several decennia yet 30–40 products were sold by g.Tec. BCIs for
healthy users are available since less than 5 years and (at least) more than a million products have
been sold. It is remarkable that 72.4% of the respondents are not aware that BCIs for healthy
users are already on the market. Since 10 companies already exist in this direction we argue that
optimism for this type of applications is quite appropriate. In our opinion BNCI for AT is not
346
5th Int. BCI Conference 2011
likely to create large economic value, unless it becomes available for a broader range of categories
of (more numerous) end-users. The societal value of AT-BCI products is enormous, since they
can enable users with disabilities to participate in the society at interpersonal and professional
levels. However, we predict that the research and development of BCIs targeted at the general
public will more easily mobilize the industry and facilitate the tech transfer between universities
and industry. This will lead to more acceptance of BNCI technology in the public and possibly to
a spillover to the AT industry. In addition, even though the market for BCI-controlled prosthetics
requires a more time-consuming trajectory, ultimately we expect these products to create large
economic and societal value similar to Deep Brain Stimulation, because the number of potential
end-users is relatively high.
The survey reported here contains some flaws. First, since we could not make the entire survey
too time-consuming, some questions were generalized. For instance, we did not specify whether
the BCI products would work with non-invasive or invasive brain signals nor did we consider the
usability of diffent BCIs. However, these specifications would influence the cost, number of avail-
able users, training time, time to market and many other factors. Second, the respondents were
mostly people involved primarily in BCI research and had the time, funds, and enthusiasm to
attend a major conference, so the sample may be positively biased. fBNCI in future will survey a
broader range of stakeholders, including more experts from human-computer interaction and the
industry.
Although we view these data as a first crude estimation of the fields’ perception of marketability
of BCIs, we cautiously conclude that BCI researchers seem optimistic about how much time it will
take before the first BCIs for non-medical purposes and AT enter the market. We agree with them
that the market for BNCI applications for healthy users is promising, but we are not convinced
that the market for AT-BCI applications is equally promising simply because the number of end-
users is relatively low in comparison. Moreover, the limited knowledge of respondents about
existing companies should raise awareness in the BCI community that tech transfer is already well
established largely without the involvement of the scientists who consider themselves the core of
the BCI field. A more pro-active role of BCI scientists in tech transfer would be desirable for high
quality product development.
5 Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support the Future BNCI project (Project number ICT-
248320) and of the BrainGain Smart Mix Program. We thank all respondents and Thorsten
Zander, Jan van Erp, Yann Renard, Fabien Lotte, Ariel Garten, Tom Sulivan, Christoph Guger
and Hendri Hondorp for valuabe input.
References
[1] A. Nijholt and D. Tan. Brain-computer interfacing for intelligent systems. Ieee Intelligent
Systems, 23(3):72–72, 2008.
[2] B. Z. Allison. Toward ubiquitous BCIs. In Bernhard Graimann, Gert Pfurtscheller, and
Brendan Allison, editors, Brain-Computer Interfaces, The Frontiers Collection, pages 357–387.
Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2010.
[3] F. Nijboer, J. Clausen, B. Z. Allison, and P. Haselager. Researchers opinions about ethically
sound dissemination of BCI research to the public media. International Journal of Bioelectromagnetism
, in press.
[4] F. Nijboer, J. Clausen, B. Z. Allison, and P. Haselager. The Asilomar survey: researchers
opinions on ethical issues related to brain-computer interfacing. Neuroethics, in review.
[5] Z. Lynch. The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World. St. Martin’s
press, New York, 2009.
347
5th Int. BCI Conference 2011
Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) and Initial Development of
a Repository of BCI Companies
F. Nijboer1, B. Z. Allison2, S. Dunne3, D. Plass-Oude Bos1, A. Nijholt1,
P. Haselager4
1Human Media Interaction, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands
2Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria
3Starlab, Barcelona, Spain
4Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the
Netherlands
femke.nijboer@utwente.nl
Abstract
The marketability of BCI applications may greatly influence the decisions of goverments,
the industry and academia. In this paper we first explored with a survey when respondents
(N = 145), who were present at the 4th International BCI Meeting, expect that different
BCI applications will become commercially available. Second, we surveyed how well existing
BCI companies are known to respondents. Third, we compared the findings with our own
preliminary overview of the marketability of BCIs and our repository of 28 companies. Re-
spondents were optimistic about the marketability of BCIs for healthy users and users who
need assistive technology (AT), but 72.4% of the respondents was unaware that companies
already exist which market BCI’s. Based on a preliminary market overview we cautiously
suggest that optimism in relation to applications for healthy users is more appropriate than
in relation to BCI-based AT. In future we plan surveys among a broader range of stakeholders
and more profound analyses of the market.
1 Introduction
Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research is rapidly increasing, with considerable enthusiasm
for applications for users with and without physical disabilities [1, 2]. A roadmap for BCI re-
search and development could help address emerging markets and opportunities. The future
Brain/Neuronal Computer Interaction project (fBNCI; http://future-bnci.org/) aims to de-
velop such a roadmap by drawing on the expertise of BCI researchers, as well as many other
stakeholder groups, including companies, end users, patient organizations, policy makers, and the
general public. One focus of the roadmap is to evaluate the marketability of current and future
BCI applications. Hence, we surveyed researchers on the marketability of BCIs at the 4th Inter-
national BCI Meeting, which took place at the Asilomar conference centre in June 2010. This
conference provided an excellent opportunity to engage many qualified respondents, although it
has to be noted that many other qualified respondents (e.g. from the field of human-computer in-
teraction or ambient intelligence) do not typically attend this meeting which may bias our findings
(see Section 5). Other results from this survey and more demographical data of the repondents
are available elsewhere ([3]) and under review ([4]).In this paper we focus on three aspects of the
survey. First, we explored when respondents expect that different BCI applications will become
commercially available (see Section 3.1). Second, we surveyed how well existing BCI companies are
known to respondents (see Section 3.2). Third, we compared the findings with our own preliminary
overview of the marketability of BCIs and our repository of companies (see Section 3.3).
344
5th Int. BCI Conference 2011
2 Methods
A total of 145 (105 males, 39 females) out of 289 conference attendees responded to the questions
about the marketability of BCIs. Seventy three persons were aged between 18 and 30, sixty-nine
persons between 31 and 55 and two persons were aged between 56 and 70. The sample consisted of
experts from various disciplines (e.g. neuro-, computer or cognitive scientists, electrical engineers,
psychologists etc). One participant did not give demographical data.
Participants completed an online survey that included four questions on the expected mar-
ketability of different purpose BCIs. In the survey, for convenience, we ordered some BCI types
based on their function: 1) BCIs for healthy users, 2) BCIs as AT, 3) BCI-controlled prostheses
and 4) BCIs as therapy tools.
Specifically, participants were asked to indicate when they expected to see these types of BCI
systems to become available on the market. Participants could choose from 5 answer options:
“never”, “between 0–5 years”, “between 5–10 years”, “more than 10 years” or “it already exists on
the market”. Participants who indicated that this type of BCI already exists on the market were
asked which group or company offers the product.
Only companies which offered BCI products and services were included in the repository.
Thus, companies supplying hardware and software needed for BCI research were not included.
The repository was build through: 1) web searches, 2) written and verbal interviews of experts
and 3) iterative postings on LinkedIn groups (“brain-computer interface group”, “neuromarketing”
and “BrainGain”).
3 Results
3.1 Respondents’ Expectancies of Marketability of BCI
Table 1 presents the respondents’ expectancies per BCI class.
BNCI technology for: on market 0–5 yrs 6–10 yrs > 10 yrs never # of resps
healthy users 26.6% 44.8% 13.8% 12.4% 1.4% 145
users who need AT 16.6% 42.1% 33.8% 7.6% 0.0% 145
users who need prostheses 0.7% 20% 43.4% 34.5% 1.4% 145
users who need therapy 9.9% 39.4% 39.4% 10.6% 0.7% 142
Table 1: Overview of percentage of respondent which indicated when BCI applications will enter
(if ever) the market for healthy users, users who need AT, prostheses and therapy. The last column
shows the number of respondents (# of resps) who rated the item.
3.2 Respondents’ Knowledge About Existing Companies
Thirty-two respondents reported which companies they knew that already marketed BCI’s for
health users. By far the best known companies are Neurosky (counted 13 times) and Emotiv
(counted 14 times). Other companies that were mentioned: Hitachi, Ambient, OCZ technology,
Starwars Science, Mattel, inc., g.Tec, Brain Actuated Technologies, InteraXon, Zeo, inc. and In-
teractive Productline. Twenty-two respondents reported which companies they knew that already
marketed BCIs as AT. The best-known company is g.Tec (counted 16 times). Other groups and
companies that respondents listed were: Ambient, Brain Actuated Technologies, OpenVibe and
BCI2000. Nine respondents commented that they knew BCI’s as therapy tools already are on the
market, but only two gave concrete company names: Brain master Technologies, inc. and EEGinfo.
None of the respondents identified a company that already markets BCI-based prostheses.
345
5th Int. BCI Conference 2011
3.3 Preliminary Overview of Companies and Marketability
We summarized a preliminary overview of 28 companies related to Brain-Computer Interfacing
(see Figure 1), which we expect to be more complete at the time of the Graz conference. Currently,
neurofeedback companies are not yet listed in the repository. We invite all readers to comment on
this overview and continue completing and criticizing the overview so we can offer the European
Commission the most accurate summary possible. This overview currently shows that as many
as 10 companies market BNCI’s for entertainment and gaming. Six companies offer BNCI as AT,
although two of these companies (Neural Signals, inc and BitBrain) do not yet market products.
However, there is a big difference in the number of products sold between the two markets.
Neurosky, for example, has sold approximately 1million Mindsets, whereas g.Tec has sold between
30–40 Intendixes (personal communication). Our survey did not address neuromarketing. We
counted six companies in this area. BCI researchers (N = 144) have divided opinions on whether
neuromarketing technologies do (35.4%) or do not count (47.9%) as BCI systems (Nijboer et al,
in review). Nevertheless, neuromarketing developments influence BCIs, and it is predicted that
this market will grow tremendously [2, 5]. Finally, two companies (Brain Fingerprinting inc. and
No Lie MRI) provide BCI services for criminal investigation.
http://future-bnci.org/
BNCI
technologies
health
sector
entertainment
sector
financial
sector
ICT
educational
sector
neuromarketing
serious games
humancomputer
interaction
multimodal
interaction
gaming
art
science
realtime
analysis
neuroeconomics
Interactive
Productline
Zeo, inc.
Neurosky
Emotiv Mattel, inc.
Uncle Milton
PLX
BCI net
Mind
technologies
Neuro-insight
The Mindlab
Sands
technologies
Cortech
solutions
Emsense
safety
security
jurisdiction
BitBrain
technologies
InteraXon.
InteraXon.
nutrition
g.Tec
Brain actuated
technologies
Ambient
wellness
prevention
monitoring
therapy
assitive
technology
addiction
disorders
Neural
Signals, inc.
image
detection
BitBrain
technologies
ambient
intelligence
Brainfingers
Brain Fingerprinting
Laboratories, Inc.
Starlab
Starlab
No lie MRI
Starlab
neurofocus
Advanced
Brain
Monitoring
NeuroVigil,
inc.
Figure 1: Preliminary overview of existing companies.
4 Discussion and Conclusion
The survey results show that respondents were generally optimistic about the near-term mar-
ketability of BCI’s for healthy users and user in need of AT. Repondents were slightly less opti-
mistic about BCIs for therapy and expect BCI-controlled neuroprostheses to require more than
10 years to enter the market. Our preliminary overview shows that companies - more than respon-
dents realize - already market BCIs for healthy users and users who need AT. However, having
a product on the market does not yet mean that a product is sold successfully. BCI research
toward AT has a history of several decennia yet 30–40 products were sold by g.Tec. BCIs for
healthy users are available since less than 5 years and (at least) more than a million products have
been sold. It is remarkable that 72.4% of the respondents are not aware that BCIs for healthy
users are already on the market. Since 10 companies already exist in this direction we argue that
optimism for this type of applications is quite appropriate. In our opinion BNCI for AT is not
346
5th Int. BCI Conference 2011
likely to create large economic value, unless it becomes available for a broader range of categories
of (more numerous) end-users. The societal value of AT-BCI products is enormous, since they
can enable users with disabilities to participate in the society at interpersonal and professional
levels. However, we predict that the research and development of BCIs targeted at the general
public will more easily mobilize the industry and facilitate the tech transfer between universities
and industry. This will lead to more acceptance of BNCI technology in the public and possibly to
a spillover to the AT industry. In addition, even though the market for BCI-controlled prosthetics
requires a more time-consuming trajectory, ultimately we expect these products to create large
economic and societal value similar to Deep Brain Stimulation, because the number of potential
end-users is relatively high.
The survey reported here contains some flaws. First, since we could not make the entire survey
too time-consuming, some questions were generalized. For instance, we did not specify whether
the BCI products would work with non-invasive or invasive brain signals nor did we consider the
usability of diffent BCIs. However, these specifications would influence the cost, number of avail-
able users, training time, time to market and many other factors. Second, the respondents were
mostly people involved primarily in BCI research and had the time, funds, and enthusiasm to
attend a major conference, so the sample may be positively biased. fBNCI in future will survey a
broader range of stakeholders, including more experts from human-computer interaction and the
industry.
Although we view these data as a first crude estimation of the fields’ perception of marketability
of BCIs, we cautiously conclude that BCI researchers seem optimistic about how much time it will
take before the first BCIs for non-medical purposes and AT enter the market. We agree with them
that the market for BNCI applications for healthy users is promising, but we are not convinced
that the market for AT-BCI applications is equally promising simply because the number of end-
users is relatively low in comparison. Moreover, the limited knowledge of respondents about
existing companies should raise awareness in the BCI community that tech transfer is already well
established largely without the involvement of the scientists who consider themselves the core of
the BCI field. A more pro-active role of BCI scientists in tech transfer would be desirable for high
quality product development.
5 Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support the Future BNCI project (Project number ICT-
248320) and of the BrainGain Smart Mix Program. We thank all respondents and Thorsten
Zander, Jan van Erp, Yann Renard, Fabien Lotte, Ariel Garten, Tom Sulivan, Christoph Guger
and Hendri Hondorp for valuabe input.
References
[1] A. Nijholt and D. Tan. Brain-computer interfacing for intelligent systems. Ieee Intelligent
Systems, 23(3):72–72, 2008.
[2] B. Z. Allison. Toward ubiquitous BCIs. In Bernhard Graimann, Gert Pfurtscheller, and
Brendan Allison, editors, Brain-Computer Interfaces, The Frontiers Collection, pages 357–387.
Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2010.
[3] F. Nijboer, J. Clausen, B. Z. Allison, and P. Haselager. Researchers opinions about ethically
sound dissemination of BCI research to the public media. International Journal of Bioelectromagnetism
, in press.
[4] F. Nijboer, J. Clausen, B. Z. Allison, and P. Haselager. The Asilomar survey: researchers
opinions on ethical issues related to brain-computer interfacing. Neuroethics, in review.
[5] Z. Lynch. The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World. St. Martin’s
press, New York, 2009.
347
5th Int. BCI Conference 2011
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