OpenBCI’s Galea Wins the Auggie Award for Best Interaction Product at AWE 2022

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/.