EEGFrontier – an open-source EEG board built from scratch

Hi HN,

This is EEGFrontier V1, an open-source EEG acquisition board I designed as a learning and experimentation project.

The board is built around the ADS1299 (EEG analog front-end) and a Seeed XIAO RP2040. The goal was to design a compact, low-cost board that works with dry electrodes and exposes the full EEG signal chain, from analog front-end to firmware.

I started this project because most affordable EEG devices are either closed-source or abstract away too much of the hardware. I wanted to understand the real constraints involved in EEG design: noise, grounding (REF/BIAS), routing limitations, and what actually happens when theory meets a real PCB.

The repository includes the full KiCad design, firmware, BOM with cost references, and documentation images. This is a V1 board and still evolving. It’s functional, but there are things I already want to improve, especially around shielding and noise mitigation.

This project is primarily educational, but I tried to design it seriously, following datasheets and reference designs while learning where those fall short in practice.

I’m sharing it here to get feedback, criticism, and ideas from people more experienced in EEG, biosignal acquisition, or analog front-end design. Any comments are appreciated.

It's a little expensive too , but I'm applying it at HackClub Blueprint.

Thanks for reading.