Flow. The fabled state of zen, where the world falls away save for the task directly in front of you. It’s a kind of euphoria-filled moment that’s so hard to attain and one you can only comprehend until after it’s over. There’s a reason competitive folk crave the flow state, and I’ve used one of the few gadgets that claim to actually help you get there—by literally using your brain.
The issue is how we can even measure “flow.” How do we know when we’re well and truly focused? It’s an issue the EEG technology company Neurable has been ironing out with a gaming headset developed alongside HP’s HyperX PC gaming brand. In its current iteration, the technology is clearly geared toward e-sports players or pro-level wannabes. Big picture, though, we may be on the brink of discovering yet another data point to add to the heap of health metrics we already track: your brain’s approximated level of focus. Essentially, the special earcups inside the HyperX Neurable headset contain a miniaturized set of electroencephalography sensors. This type of technology is normally built into a full cranium-spanning device full of small metal electrodes made to measure the minute electrical charges that spell out brain activity. In the HyperX Neurable headset, a set of two EEG sensors measure a user’s level of focus. Utilizing the data gathered from the brain’s feint electrical signals, Neurable uses a specialized app to guide users to an optimal focus state. The actual headset isn’t available yet, though HP has promised we’ll know more later in the year. Even without an actual product in sight, the technology has left me wondering whether the next era of wearables will target areas beyond our wrists, fingers, and eyes. Future gadgets may try to peel the layers of our brains to gather personal data—figuratively, of course—to understand more about our physical or emotional state.
