
Galea, OpenBCI’s new product, took home this year’s Auggie Award for Best Interaction Product. The annual Auggie Awards are a highly anticipated event at the Augmented World Expo. Established in 2010, the conference continues to serve as a showcase for the best of the best in augmented, virtual, and mixed reality. Previous Auggie Award winners include Unity, Magic Leap, 8th Wall, Looking Glass Factory, and Snap.
Galea is a bridge between mixed reality and neurotechnology, integrating next-generation brain-computer interface technology and state-of-the-art VR Headsets. “[This] fusion between human and digital is the cornerstone of XR”, says Will Austin, Award Presenter and USA Today Senior Designer of Emerging Tech.
Galea is a breakthrough in VR neurotechnology, being the world’s first device to simultaneously measure the user’s heart, skin, muscles, eyes, and brain. Galea’s unique multi-modal sensor network and complementary software dramatically simplifies the process of collecting tightly-synchronized data from the body and unlocks new techniques for anyone looking to objectively measure user experiences and cognitive states. Galea provides developers and researchers exploring the future of human-computer interaction with a powerful new tool for understanding and augmenting the human mind.
This winning product is a collaboration with fellow Auggie Award Winner, Varjo. Varjo is the leader in professional-grade VR/XR, with their newest headset Aero taking home the award for Best Headworn Device. Varjo and OpenBCI recently announced their partnership for the Galea beta devices, which will come fully-integrated with the Varjo Aero headset.
“We’ve worked really hard to bring this to fruition,” said OpenBCI CEO and co-founder Conor Russomanno, as he accepted the award, repping the headset on stage. Galea has already received significant interest from a multitude of communities, including medicine, research, training, and gaming. Galea beta systems are currently available for pre-order via galea.co/.

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