In this section:

• Connecting your EEG headset

• Disconnecting your headset

• Fitting your headset

• Contact quality map

• Contact quality indicator

• Battery indicator

• EPOC+ and EPOC X configurations

To disconnect your headset from EmotivBCI:

1. Unplug the dongle or turn off the headset using power button on the device.

2. Disconnecting the device may take up to 30 seconds.

If you’re in an environment with high levels of Bluetooth interference, we recommend using a USB receiver dongle to pair with your headset. To pair your headset with a USB receiver dongle: ‌

1. Plug in the USB receiver to your computer’s USB port.

2. Plug in the USB receiver dongle to your computer’s USB port. The LED above the power symbol should start blinking (about once a second) to show that it is broadcasting.

3. Turn your headset on. When you turn your headset on, a second LED will light up, and the LED above the power symbol will become fainter and flicker more rapidly. When your USB receiver dongle does this, it is paired with your headset.

4. You can now connect your headset to EmotivBCI.

If you experience any issues when pairing your EEG headset with a USB receiver dongle, please refer to your headset's user manual.

Accurate EEG data collection depends on good sensor contact with the scalp and good EEG signal quality.

The contact quality map shows you a visual representation of the current contact quality at each individual sensor on your headset. Each sensor’s contact quality status can be seen in real time, so you can adjust them (if needed) to achieve 100% contact quality.

The contact quality statuses are:

• ‌Green - good

• Orange - moderate

• Red - poor

• Black - very poor

Please note: The contact quality map for EPOC Flex will only show the sensors that have been configured.

What is EEG Quality?

EEG Quality (EQ) has been built to give you an easy way to assess whether you are recording high quality brain signals or not. Basically, it is a scoring system for the quality of the signal in each sensor. Each sensor is given a black, red, orange, light green or dark green colour to indicate the quality of the EEG signal for that specific sensor.

Overall EEG Quality as displayed in your EMOTIV application is presented as a score of 0-100. This number makes it easy to understand the quality of your signal at a glance. How do we calculate it? See below.

How is EEG Quality Different to Contact Quality?

Contact Quality is a simple measurement of impedence of the channel. While this measurement is used widely in neuroscience and medical settings, it is really only a useful reading to a trained EEG professional and does not give the full picture on the quality of the signal. Signals that have low impedance are not necessarily brain signals - and you might have found that sitting your headset on the table can produce a false positive - leading the user to falsely believe they are recording high quality brain data.

Okay, but what actually is EQ?

EEG Quality is a machine-learning trained algorithm that automatically determines the quality of the signal based on multiple metrics. Each of these metrics are important in assessing whether the recording data accurately captures the underlying brain signal. These metrics include

• Contact Quality (CQ) (as above) - an impedance measurement that indicates the quality of the electrical signal passing through the sensors and the reference. It can be one of 4 values: 0 - very bad (black), 1 - bad (red), 2 - ok (orange) and 4 - good (green).

• ML Signal Quality (SQ): A machine learning algorithm trained on high quality EEG recordings that were assessed and collected by the EMOTIV Research team. The Signal Quality algorithm assess data over 2 seconds and is scored 0 - very bad (black), 1 - bad (red), 3 (light green) and 4 -good (dark green)

• Signal Magnitude Quality (SMQ): A measure of the signal amplitude. Sometimes, the above metrics i.e. CQ, SQ are good but the signal amplitude is very small and therefore small power fluctuations in the FFT would be undetectable. Often, this is due to poor sensor hydration or poor scalp contact. SMQ gives scores for the average signal magnitude within a 2 second epoch. The scores can be 0 - very low (black), 1 - low (red), 4 - ok (green).

Each of these metrics are important in determining the quality of the signal, therefore the sensor colour will not be dark green unless all of these metrics have a “good” score of 4. The “EQ Map” UI in your EMOTIV software displays the minimum score of any of these metrics. The resulting EQ Score for each channel can be 0,1,2,3,4 corresponding to the colours black, red, orange, light green and dark screen, respectively.

How is Overall EQ Calculated?

Overall EQ is calculated and displayed as a number out of 100 so you can see your EEG Quality for all channels at a glance. Overall EQ is calculated as the sum of the worst 3 channels divided by the sum of the maximum score of these 3 channels, as a percentage. The resulting mathematical formula is (min1 + min2 + min3 / 12) * 100.

MacOS

To connect your EEG headset to EmotivBCI via Bluetooth (BLE 4.0) on Mac OS:

1. Go to Bluetooth settings and turn Bluetooth on.

2. Open EMOTIV Launcher, click on the Bluetooth icon and follow the steps.

3. Turn your headset on.

4. Open EmotivBCI.

5. Click on the Connect Headset button at the top of the screen.

6. Choose your headset and click on Connect.

7. Follow the fitting instructions for your headset.

8. Once you’ve fitted your headset, click on Close.

9. Your headset is now connected to EmotivBCI.

Windows

There are two states for connecting your EMOTIV headset; "unpaired" or "paired". If you are having trouble connecting in the "unpaired" state, then you should try pairing the device to your computer.

Unpaired mode

1. Go to Settings and turn Bluetooth On.

2. Turn your headset on.

3. Open EmotivPRO.

4. Click on the Connect Headset button at the top of the screen.

5. Choose your headset and click on Connect.

6. Follow the fitting instructions for your headset.

7. Once you've fitted your headset, click on Close.

8. Your headset is now connected to EmotivPRO.

Paired mode

If you're having trouble connecting your headset, you should try pairing it to your computer:

1. Go to Settings and then Bluetooth and other devices.

2. Turn your headset on.

3. Turn Bluetooth On and click Add Bluetooth or other device.

4. Your headset should now appear on the list of available devices.

EmotivBCI is compatible with EMOTIV EPOC, EPOC+, EPOC X, INSIGHT, and EPOC Flex (partial, see for more detailed) headsets. Before you connect your headset to EmotivBCI, make sure your device’s battery is charged.

Headset connection types priority

if your headset pairs with more than 1 connection type at the same time, connection types priority will follow 2 cases below:

• Case 1: In case of no prior connections, the priority for different types is as follows: USB cable connection -> USB dongle connection -> BTLE connection

• Case 2: In the case of prior connections, a new incoming connection will be queued for about 30s until the first connection can disconnect

Also in this section:

You can find the EEG quality indicator at the top of the EmotivPRO home screen, next to your headset’s name. The EEG quality indicator shows you, in real time, the overall EEG quality averaged across all the sensors on your headset. Red indicates poor EEG quality, orange is average EEG quality, and green indicates good EEG quality.

You can find the battery level indicator at the top of the EmotivPRO home screen, next to your headset’s name. The battery level indicator shows you the percentage of battery life remaining in your EEG headset.

EmotivBCI is now possible to work with an EPOC Flex headset but this requires a specific EEG sensor mapping same as the EPOC+ or EPOC X. You can achieve this by the following steps:

1. Connect your EPOC Flex with your machine (via Bluetooth or dongle)

2. Open EmotivBCI and click on the "Connect" button:

3. A popup will appear and you can click on the "Open EMOTIV Launcher" button to open the EMOTIV Launcher

4. Connect your EPOC Flex on the EMOTIV Launcher

5. Create a new EEG sensor mapping with a template (EPOC X Base Configuration)

6. Apply the new EEG sensor mapping

7. Back to the EmotivBCI, and connect the EPOC Flex headset as usual.

When connecting your EEG headset to EmotivBCI, the Device Fitting screen will show you how to fit your headset.

If you’re connecting an EPOC Flex headset to EmotivBCI, please refer to the Assembly and Fitting guide which can be accessed via the link on the Device Fitting screen.

You can configure your EPOC+ and EPOC X's EEG sample rate, EEG resolution, motion data sample rate, and motion data resolution through EmotivBCI.

There are no configuration settings for Emotiv’s EPOC, EPOC Flex, and Insight headsets.

To configure your EPOC+ or EPOC X:

1. Connect your EPOC+ or EPOC X headset to your computer using the USB cable that came with it.

2. Open the EPOC+ or EPOC X configuration settings by clicking on the headset name at the top of the EmotivBCI home screen.

3. Select your configuration. Your headset will update as you make your selections.

4. Unplug your EPOC+ or EPOC X device from your computer

Please note:

• If your EPOC+ or EPOC X headset is connected to your computer via Bluetooth, then EEG can only run at 128 Hz and motion data can only run at 64 Hz.

• If you view the configuration menu during real-time streaming, your headset settings will be shown even when your headset is not plugged in to your computer.