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Nobuyoshi · Joined: Jan 15, 2019 Posts: 21

Hi Jarek,

Recently, I noticed that the OpenBCI Ganglion Firmware has been updated to version 3.0, as per the documentation provided at [https://docs.openbci.com/Ganglion/GanglionProgram/#download-the-latest-builds].

However, when I tried to use the updated board with the BioEra4.188's Ganglion module, it seems that the it does not support the new firmware.

As a result, I am unable to obtain accurate brainwave readings, as demonstrated in the follwing URL.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iptt7fIYv-8ZPDACcd7IsBwp8IGNa8Fc/view?usp=sharing

Could you provide any suggestions or potential solutions to address this compatibility issue?

Warm regards,
Nobu

jarek · Joined: Oct 22, 2007 Posts: 1034

This would be a question for the OpenBCI support.

Usually firmware upgrades are supposed to be compatible with previous version of the communication protocol. So I don't know if this change was intentional, or maybe they have something to fix or improve with this new firmware or explain how to use it it with backward compatibility.

Nobuyoshi · Joined: Jan 15, 2019 Posts: 21

Thank you for your prompt response and clarification of the situation.

I understand that this issue may be best addressed with OpenBCI support. I have decided to first report this phenomenon on the OpenBCI forum and ask for guidance.

I would like to inform you that the official OpenBCI GUI displays EEG data correctly when using the Ganglion board with the new firmware. The waveform anomalies only appear when using the BioEra module. This discrepancy was not observed with the older firmware v2.

I sincerely appreciate your cooperation and instructions on this matter and will report back here regarding OpenBCI's response.

wjcroft · Joined: Jul 30, 2008 Posts: 15

Hi Jarek and Nobuyoshi,

So sorry that OpenBCI had to make a hard decision to upgrade the firmware in a radical way to fix a long standing issue with certain signals that broke the past 'compression' algorithm. More background is explained on the two threads:

https://openbci.com/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/3686/compatibility-issue-with-bioera-and-ganglion-firmware-v3-0

and

https://openbci.com/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/19622/#Comment_19622

Scroll backwards on that last thread to see the documented broken cases which prompted the fix. As mentioned on Nobuyoshi's OpenBCI Forum thread (1st link above), the recommended solution is to just replace your direct parsing of the stream, with calling on the Java Brainflow library. That way the driver auto-adapts to the new v3 stream format.

https://brainflow.readthedocs.io/en/stable/Examples.html#java

Apologies again for the situation which forced this backward incompatible change.

Best regards, William Croft, OpenBCI Forum moderator

jarek · Joined: Oct 22, 2007 Posts: 1034

I think the best solution for now is to downgrade the firmware to 2.0 (as suggested by William).

I don't know how long it will take to get a new driver. We would probably need to get a new ganglion board with firmware 3.0 (and keep the current board with 2.0 which is much more common). And then figure out how to use the brainflow library, at this moment I don't find any info about it in the OpenBCI's SDK documentation about Ganglion.

wjcroft · Joined: Jul 30, 2008 Posts: 15

Jarek, thanks much.

I just asked OpenBCI staff to please send you a v3 Ganglion board. That way you will have both v2 and v3 available for testing. You can additionally email contact@openbci.com to communicate / open ticket with staff. Shirley is COO.

Sorry again for this disruption, the engineering staff thought long and hard about this, and realized backward compatibility would not be feasible. That is why they devised the auto-detect strategy in Brainflow. Brainflow docs at link I posted:

https://brainflow.readthedocs.io/en/stable/Examples.html#java

Best,

jarek · Joined: Oct 22, 2007 Posts: 1034

BioEra v. 4.218 now supports all versions of Ganglion including those with latest firmware 3.0.1.

Nobuyoshi · Joined: Jan 15, 2019 Posts: 21

Hi Jarek,

i appreciate your support!