CES 2026: I tried Neurable’s brain-sensing headphones

Neuralable’s pitch at CES 2026 is bold: What if performance tracking included not just your mouse, keyboard, or heart rate, but also your thoughts?

That idea has now been packaged into a pair of bulky but surprisingly comfortable gaming headphones, produced in partnership with HP’s HyperX brand. There are EEG sensors inside the headset that are designed to read brain signals in real time, allowing Neuralable’s software to track focus, cognitive load, and reaction speed while you play.

I tried out Neurable’s Neurotech headphones during a private demo with the team inside the Palazzo, away from the hustle and bustle of the show floor. The headset features thick earcups and fabric padding that are designed to hide the EEG sensors without looking like lab equipment.

It should be noted that Neuralable didn’t start out in gaming. Much of the company’s underlying technology was developed in academic settings and tested with the Department of Defense, including applications for monitoring brain health after blast exposure.

The headset supports live metrics for streamers and coaches, including focus, cognitive speed, and “brain battery,” a measure meant to indicate when you’re mentally tired and perhaps should take a break.

Before providing any “performance boost”, the system establishes a baseline. Sitting at a demo station, I looked at a live graph that didn’t respond to anything other than my thoughts: focus pushed the line up, distraction pulled it back down. No calibration sessions, no gel caps, no wires running across my scalp – a major hurdle that Neuralable claims to solve by using AI-powered signal processing, emphasized CEO Ramses Alkaid.

From there, the demo proceeded amlabsA familiar FPS training tool used by eSports players to measure accuracy and reaction time. The goal is to hit as many targets as possible in a given time frame. My first race went well, though not spectacular, and it was also hampered by the fact that my contact lenses kept slipping whenever I focused too hard.

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That baseline run mattered because it set the stage for PRIME.

PRIME is Neurable’s neurofeedback system, and it’s best described as a personal meditation warm-up for your brain. Instead of asking you to briefly “clear your mind,” PRIME visualizes your focus and cognitive load in real time. As you relax and concentrate, the dots on the screen gradually collapse into a single point – feedback that your brain is entering an optimal state.

Alicia Howell-Munson, the research scientist who developed PRIME, describes it less as a relaxation exercise and more as a form of cognitive tuning. For me the session lasted just over a minute. I was told that others may take anywhere from 30 seconds to several minutes depending on fatigue, stress, or how far from their baseline they are that day.

When it was over, I felt strangely alert. Not wired, but ready. The best comparison I can make is the feeling right after a good meditation session, except with a clearer sense of purpose. Unfortunately, my contacts were still deteriorating.

After PRIME, I took it again amlabs Examination Despite struggling with my eyes, the numbers improved. I hit more targets, and my reaction time dropped from about 500 milliseconds to the mid-450s.

This is in line with the claims seen in Neuralable’s initial testing. According to the company, everyday gamers and eSports athletes using PRIME showed an average reaction time improvement of approximately 40 milliseconds, along with gains in accuracy and target hits. In competitive contexts, those margins matter.

All things considered, the feeling afterward was quite pleasant. Everything on the screen seemed a little slower, but I was responding more quickly. Alcade describes it as “bullet time for your brain”, which sounds crazy until you experience it.

While this is still a proof of concept, the team has high hopes for this headset to hit the market in the near future.

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