Getting Started
This documentation contains guidance for developing applications with EMOTIV Cortex - the core piece of technology at EMOTIV which brings the brain computer interface to consumer.
The intended audience is anyone with some programming skills who wants to develop a third party application that interacts with an EMOTIV headset.
The Cortex API is built on JSON and WebSockets, making it easy to access from a variety of programming languages and platforms.
End Of Life
Support for the previous generation EMOTIV SDK Community Edition version 3.5, and EMOTIV Cortex v1.x, has reached the end of life on 31st December 2020.
Developers should migrate their applications to work with our new Emotiv Cortex V2, which is described in this document and can be downloaded from our website.
System requirements and supported platforms
Learn more about the system requirements and support platforms for Cortex.
Supported headsets
Currently, Cortex supports the following headsets:
Model
Firmware
Connection
EPOC
All
USB dongle
All
USB dongle, BLE 4.0
All
USB dongle, BLE 4.0
Bluetooth® 5.0 will be available with upcoming software and firmware updates
All
USB dongle, BLE 4.0
Insight
All
USB dongle, BLE 4.0
All
BLE 4.0
All
BLE 4.0
Flex
All
nRF dongle with BLE 5
USB dongle refers to the USB receiver that comes with EPOC+. If you need an additional receiver, you can purchase it from the EMOTIV store.
Currently, it is not possible to use a MN8 headset with Cortex on Linux Ubuntu.
Prerequisites
Create an EmotivID
As with other EMOTIV services, you are required to have an EmotivID account. You can create an ID on www.emotiv.com.
License
With a valid EmotivID, you have access to the basic data streams, including:
Motion Data
Mental Commands
Facial Expressions
Performance Metrics (low-resolution, 0.1Hz)
Frequency Bands
Contact Quality
Battery Level
A paid subscription will be required for data streams such as:
EEG Data
Performance Metrics (high-resolution, 2Hz)
A Developer API license is required to access the Raw EEG API and the High-resolution Performance metrics API. Please complete the SDK application form, and our customer support team will respond as soon as possible with assistance and licensing options.
Visit https://www.emotiv.com/developer/ for more details. If you have questions about the licensing plans please contact the EMOTIV Customer Support.
Create a Cortex App
Create the application ID and generate the corresponding client ID and client secret for your application in order to grant access to Cortex API.
Login to www.emotiv.com.
Go to My Account Dashboard (https://www.emotiv.com/my-account/).
Select Cortex Apps.
Read the Developers EULA carefully and click Accept only if you agree to all the terms and conditions. You cannot develop an application that works with Cortex if you do not agree to all of the terms.
Enter the name of your new application - an application ID will be generated automatically in the form of
com.{your-username}.{application-name}. Note that the app ID string must contain only alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9), hyphens (-), and periods (.).(If you have purchased a subscription to the EEG Data API) Decide whether your application requires access to the EEG Data stream. If so, understand that your application will only be available to you until you contact EMOTIV for a deployment license. If your application does not require EEG data then you are entitled to share it with up to 10,000 users before contacting EMOTIV for a deployment license.
(If you have purchased a subscription to the EEG Data API and decided that your application would require access to the EEG Data stream), tick "My App requires EEG access". If you forget this, your application cannot subscribe to EEG stream data later.
Click Register Application. A client ID and a client secret will be presented to you. Copy them to somewhere safe immediately as the client secret will ONLY BE SHOWN ONCE ON THIS SCREEN FOR SECURITY. If you lost it, you will have to generate a new application ID later.
(If you have purchased a subscription to the EEG Data API and decided that your application would require access to the EEG Data stream), make sure you submit this form https://account.emotiv.com/cortex-sdk-application-form/ with necessary information. If you don't submit this form, your applications don't have permission to use the license later.
The Cortex Examples
To help you getting started with your application, EMOTIV provides basic examples in various programming languages. There are open source and hosted by Github at https://github.com/Emotiv/cortex-v2-example
If you have difficulty with the Cortex API, you can also open an issue on this Github repository.
Next Step
If you are upgrading your application from Cortex 1.x to Cortex 2.x, then please be aware that the Cortex API has significantly changed. Please read the release notes for details.
If you are new to the Cortex API, then please start with Connecting to the Cortex API.
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