Give your brain a workout using music and this EEG wearable

Alphabeats

Alphabeats, a company that uses music to give your brain a workout, has returned after its initial launch earlier this year with a new partnership that makes the technology more accessible to more people. It has teamed up with Muse to integrate its unusual training method into the brand’s high-tech headbands with built-in electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors.

Muse wearers will be able to use the Alphabeats app to play music, which is tuned to their brainwaves and then adapted to make a HIIT-style workout for the mind, training it to improve focus, promote relaxation, or to meditate. Your brainwaves are tracked by the Muse headband and visualized in the Alphabeats app, while the headband comes with a new feature called the Brain Recharge Score, allowing you to understand how your brain is reacting to stress and demanding tasks over time.

Jorrit DeVries, Alphabeats CEO, said this about the partnership:

“Music is the key to making mental training both effective and engaging, a finding we’ve proven with professional athletes over the past decade. Muse has built strong credibility through their affordable, high-quality hardware solutions. By integrating our one-of-a kind music-driven training with their platform, we can offer professional-grade mental training at a more accessible price point to more people.”

Both Alphabeats and Muse claim their products can help athletes improve performance, and research published by industry journal Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback showed soccer players using Alphabeats technology “increased their ability to reach an optimal mental state by 34%,” while the University of Toronto showed golfers attaining better putting scores after seven minutes using a Muse headband.

When we last talked about Alphabeats it had partnered with Brainbits. The package of EEG hardware and software cost $689, and was primarily targeted at athletes and professional sports people. Muse is an established name in the world of EEG-based brain health hardware, and its products are much cheaper. During an early promotional period the Muse 2 with one-year’s access to the Alphabeats app costs $199, which will increase to $399 after the promotion ends.

Alphabeats is a subscription-based service, and it has now confirmed it will cost $149 per year to access the platform, but if you already own a Muse 2 or a Muse S headband there’s a special introductory price of $79 for a year available. Alphabeats is one of the more unusual health and fitness products we’ve seen, and if you’re interested in finding out if exercising your brain with music actually works, it’ll be worth picking up the $199 deal for a Muse 2 and Alphabeats.