MUSE 2: The Brain Sensing Headband - EEG MUSE Headband Meditation Tracker and Monitor - Multi Sensor Biofeedback Devices for Home Use with Responsive Sound Feedback Guidance - Neurofeedback Devices

I purchased the Muse S a few months ago and since then, have been using it daily.Here's the TLDR:The Muse S is a fantastic device, beautifully designed, and the first sleep headband I've tried that's actually comfortable enough to wear to bed. It has tons of sensors to monitor brain activity, heart rate, breath rate, etc... and it's useful not only for falling asleep, but also for general meditation purposes, as it uses the same software and includes the same sensors as the Muse 2. Interaxon is a solid company that's been around for a while and considered the industry leader in this space, so it's unlikely you'll get stuck with a useless paperweight, as happens so often with products sold on Kickstarter. The downside is the Muse app, in its current form, isn't the greatest. In fact, it's pretty bad. It doesn't support any sleep tracking features, so it's really only useful for falling asleep, not monitoring your sleep. The included daytime meditations are a mixed bag. Some are decent, others not so much. For example, the breath meditation is great, except unlike most other breathing apps, that allow you to set your desired breath rate, this one forces you to breathe at a preset rate, which can be uncomfortable. The good news is, Muse has a new app in beta, that's supposed to be vastly improved and includes all the sleep tracking features, which is the main reason why people would buy this device in the first place.Here's the full review:First, the un-boxing was a really nice experience. It was like un-boxing an Apple product. The packaging was very premium quality and much smaller than I anticipated. The box was literally smaller than the box my Apple watch came in. You can tell they put a lot of effort into making a good first impressionThe device itself looks and feels super-premium. The power source and CPU pod attach to the center of the headband using a strong magnet that snaps into place with a satisfying click. Likewise, the clasp that holds the band in place also uses a strong magnet, rather than a conventional plastic snap connector. It’s very stylish. You could wear this in public without attracting much attention. It might even make a good conversation starter! Most importantly, it’s super comfortable to wear. It feels like you’re wearing a normal headband I often forget I have it on, and have worn it all day without any problems, no headaches or anything. I'm also able to sleep comfortably while wearing it, which makes it the first sleep headband I've tried that's actually comfortable enough to use for its intended purpose.I had never meditated before and didn’t buy the Muse for that purpose. I bought it for two reasons:1. I have high blood pressure and there’s a lot of scientific evidence suggesting the technique used in the Muse breathing meditation can lower blood pressure significantly .I previously purchased and subsequently returned a $300 Resperate unit that’s FDA approved to lower blood pressure using a breathing meditation. While the Muse S is not FDA approved for anything, after using both devices, I can say the Muse S breathing meditation is pretty much the same thing as the Resperate’s, plus the Muse S does a lot more than just breathing meditations. Also, the Resperate uses a wired band with a pressure sensor to detect your breathing and wired ear buds; very inconvenient to use.2. I often have trouble falling asleep and the Muse S is specifically designed as a sleep aid. I previously purchased and returned the $500 Dreem headband, which is a dedicated sleep aid and sleep tracker. Not only did the Dreem look completely ridiculous, but it was extremely uncomfortable to sleep with it on, which pretty much defeated the purpose of all its advanced sensors and technology.So, the theoretical appeal of the Muse S for me, was that it replaced the functionality of two other devices, while offering much additional functionality and being more comfortable and stylish than either of those devices. Over the past several months, I've been following a daily meditation protocol, I implemented to attempt to lower my blood pressure:1. Breath meditation for 5 minutes. This calms your body down, putting you in a more relaxed state.2. Heart meditation for 10 minutes. This allows you to slow your heart rate. I’ve been able to get my heart rate down to less than 50 BPM without exercise.3. Mind meditation for 10 minutes. This calms your brain activity.Following this protocol every morning, I’ve been able to lower my blood pressure from 140/90 to 100/70. The effect is both cumulative and persistent thought the day and will actually last for several days without meditating. I’ve been taking blood pressure medication for many years and while it helped in the beginning, I’ve found that it’s become less effective as I’ve gotten older. I believe this meditation protocol has addressed the root cause of the issue, by reducing anxiety and stress.The sleep features are where the Muse S has much room for improvement.First, the Muse S has no built-in speakers. I knew this when I bought it, but still, it was a bit of a “duh” moment when I was getting ready for bed the first time and realized I’d have to either use my iPhone speaker or my Airpods, neither of which seemed ideal for sleeping. I opted for the Airpods and it was fine when I sleeping on my back, but it prevented me from being able to sleep on my side. I ended up purchasing a Dreampad sleep pillow, which delivers sound via bone induction rather than conventional speakers, so when your head is on the pillow, you’re immersed in the sound. The Dreampad has worked out great and could be used effectively with any audio source.Another big problem is the Muse S currently does NOT support sleep tracking! How can a company release an EEG headband, with a 10-hour battery life, specifically advertised as a sleep device and not include sleep tracking? It seems like the device hardware was engineered specifically for sleep tracking, but the app doesn’t support it. I was so shocked by this that I went back and re-read the Muse website to make sure I wasn’t missing something. Sure enough, there’s no mention of sleep tracking on the website. I just assumed it would support it, since every similar device I’ve looked at and tried, supports sleep tracking. The good news is, Muse currently has a new app in beta, which includes all the sleep tracking features.The “Sleep Journeys” are just meh. There’s maybe a dozen to choose from and they only last for 10 - 20 minutes, which is not enough time for me to fall asleep. Supposedly, they adapt to your brainwaves to play different sounds depending on your mental state, but I didn’t notice this happening. The big problem is, after the Sleep Journey ends, the device shuts off and that’s it! If you haven’t yet fallen asleep, you have to open the app and manually start another Sleep Journey. From such a hi-tech device, I’d expect that it would continue playing the Journey at least until it detects that you’ve fallen asleep.The Soundscapes use a timer, so you can play them for up to four hours. This is better than a 20-minute Sleep Journey, but still seems arbitrary. What if you want the sound to play all night, to prevent you from waking up in the middle of the night? What if you want it to play until you fall asleep? What if you want it to play until it’s time to wake up, then use a smart alarm to wake you when you’re not in a REM state? The whole point of an EEG headband is to be able to detect what’s going on in your brain and adapt accordingly. In its present form, the sleep features are actually worse than those offered by numerous iOS apps.It’s also disappointing that the standard Muse app doesn’t support viewing and streaming raw EEG data. For that, you have to buy the Muse Direct app, which presently doesn’t support the Muse S. I ended up buying the Mind Monitor third-party app, which works great, but the UI is not very polished, so it feels like a hobbyist app, not in keeping with the premium feel of the Muse device. For $350, I think Muse should make Muse Direct a free download and add support for the Muse S.Despite all these criticisms, I'm giving the Muse S a 5-star review, because it has helped me lower my stress level and my blood pressure dramatically, which obviously, you can't put a price on. Moreover, once the new sleep tracking features become available, the Muse S should become one of the best sleep tracking devices on the market, which I view as an added bonus.

So glad I made the jump to get this, after years of reading reviews and wondering if it would be another gadget that I would push aside after a while. I have been meditating since 2016, rarely missing a day, using Headspace (and sometimes TRIPP on Oculus Quest). I have an extremely distracted mind and sometimes I’d go a full 15 minutes forgetting that I was meditating, instead obsessing over something that happened years ago, yesterday or anxiety over what is coming up next week.Muse 2 is a game-changer for me. I’ve not only learned mindful awareness through some of their courses, but I’ve also learned how to tune everything out and focus on my breath *without* the device, like in a doctor’s waiting room or visiting my family, lol. I’ve become more self-aware and present throughout the day, aware of the floor beneath my feet or the sound of the outdoors. Basically, my busy mind has calmed considerably.I’ve never, ever had an issue with signal drop, so I can’t speak to that. I wonder if the negative reviewers may be expecting too much? It doesn't instantly make you meditate better and take you straight to nirvana, it trains your mind to do better over time.I’m especially intrigued at how accurate it tunes in to my brain. You can choose from several different soundscapes, such as City Park, Ocean, Rainforest, Desert, Gentle Rain, and I think there are others. The sound of the birds differ just a bit depending on the soundscape. I like the Rainforest, and the moment my thoughts drift to how funny my 5-year-old niece is, or the research paper I have to turn in, or the noise my husband is making in the kitchen, I immediately hear the chatter in the Rainforest get louder. As I bring my breath and attention back to the task at hand, the chatter dies down and I can once again hear the birds. (City Park is pretty cool though, you hear people chattering non-distinctly until your mind calms them down to quiet. Great practice for those get-togethers from which you want to mentally escape!)There was an update made just a couple of weeks ago that was very interesting! Premium subscribers (and I paid less than $20 for a year) can now listen to other apps on the same device, at the same time you use the Muse app. I loaded up binaural beats on Pandora and to my surprise, the beats didn’t help one bit, in fact they distracted me greatly. My husband uses this feature to listen to Headscape along with his Muse meditation.One more thing: you can choose to meditate your mind, or breath, or heart rate or body. You can only do one at a time. I use the mind meditation in the morning to clear my mind for a good work-day, and the breath meditation in the evening. The breath meditation measures how you sync your breathing with the beats they give you and it’s very calming. For the courses they offer, Muse measures the mind, heart rate and body (body, meaning if you are fidgety or still).If I had to complain I would say these two things: (1) I wish you could choose two or more meditations on which you want to focus. For example, I have heart problems and when I do the heart meditation, I can see the sudden dips in my heart rate that I've told my doctor about. I can do that with the heart rate meditation, but if I could do the mind and heart together, it would be better. I can also measure three features with the courses, but sometimes I don't want to hear talking. (2) Yes, you calibrate the device each time you put it on your head to meditate but it's only about 6-10 seconds long. I would like to have a 30-second lead time to ground myself, set my intention and prepare for meditation (habit from Headspace).

Headband connectivity is a nightmare. No matter what I do there's one area of the band that doesn't seem to want to register contact. It can take me 15 minutes or longer to get it to work properly. Consequently, trying to use this for sleep is counterproductive because by the time I've got it working I'm wide awake and completely agitated.Another complaint I have for sleep purposes is that the bright LED lights on the main module are situated directly above the eyes and blast bright light into them if the headband has been applied to the forehead before the sensor mode has engaged. It's important to put the headband on after the headband sensors start searching for skin contact or the bright light will be a problem for anyone not wishing to jolt their nervous system just as they're attempting to wind down for restful sleep.Although I haven't had this unit long enough to know for sure I am skeptical that the sensor pads will last. I've seen photos submitted by others in reviews and fully expect that after a few months the already finicky sensors might not work at all.Unless the unit I received is defective this device is not something I can recommend.