NextMind demos a real-time brain computer interface that translates signals from the visual cortex into digital commands, unveils Dev Kit for $399
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat :
Context & Ripple Effects
NextMind's demo lands a year after CTRL-labs raised another $28M for its armband that reads brain-to-hand muscle impulses — two parallel bets that neural input could reach consumers without surgery, one via muscles, one via the visual cortex. At $399, the Dev Kit undercuts the assumption that brain-computer interfaces are lab-only hardware.
The arc since has validated the interest while killing the standalone product: NextMind began shipping the same $399 Dev Kit late that year, then Snap acquired the Paris startup and discontinued the headband outright — folding the team into a social/AR platform rather than keeping a device business alive.
First-order effects
- Developers gain a shipping, consumer-priced EEG controller that reads visual cortex signals directly, giving NextMind a differentiated input modality against CTRL-labs' muscle-impulse armband approach.
Second-order effects
- Consumer platforms respond by acquiring rather than competing: Snap's purchase of NextMind — which had raised only ~$4.5M — shows social/AR companies treating neural-input teams as cheap feature acquisitions, then retiring the hardware.
Third-order effects
- The field is splitting along invasiveness lines — wearable EEG vendors like NextMind and BrainCo, whose brain-to-robot EEG platform extends the category to robotics, versus implant programs like Neuralink and DARPA's 64,000-electrode array — with consumer platforms absorbing the wearable side as input layers rather than products.
The trend: Non-invasive brain computer interfaces are being absorbed by consumer platforms as input features rather than surviving as independent hardware businesses.