CES 2026: I Tried a Gaming Headset That Can Read Your Mind

Before this CES, I thought gaming headsets had become as complex as ever. How many improvements can you make to the speakers and microphones? Well, forget all that. Apparently, the future of gaming headsets lies in mind reading.

In a private demo with a colleague at IGN, I tested a collaboration between HP’s HyperX gaming brand and brain-computer interface company Neurable. Neurable has participated in CES before, but most of its work has focused on the defense and enterprise sectors. The brand is specifically aimed at helping you focus, and now Neurable thinks it can use it to help gamers.

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Before trying out the Neurable x HyperX headset, I did a quick spin in a target shooter game, where I took down 30 targets with a response time of 547ms. Then I was guided through a concentration program called Prime. It showed a cloud of dots on the screen and I was told to do whatever I needed to do to concentrate. I decided to look into the distance and count, and in about 90 seconds the dots had shrunk to a small orb and I was “set.” Neurable also suggested focusing techniques, like repeating a word in your head over and over again, or following one of the dots as it moves across the screen, but these didn’t work for me.

Then I did the shooting test again. Theoretically, I should have been better, but I actually scored slightly worse this time: a response time of 559ms. Still, this response time isn’t great and your mileage may vary. Maybe I was already locked in before priming. On the other hand, my colleague reduced her response time by around 40 ms after priming. If all this optimization seems really serious, it is. This is aimed at esports players and streamers, where every millisecond counts.

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

This is probably where the coolest feature of the headset comes in for me. Alongside Prime, Neurable and HyperX are also working on an overlay plugin for streamers that can display their concentration levels on screen. You can view it as a speedometer, or as a scatter plot, or even as a progress bar showing whether you’re “leaning” or not. This should make for some pretty fun interactions with viewers and work well with existing plugins, like eye trackers that show where a streamer is looking.

Also, my slightly worse response time after booting wasn’t entirely useless. Neurable said the headset could be used to help you “choke train,” where you become aroused shortly after being locked in and end up in a worse situation. I thought it looked like a marketing manipulation, but my colleague, a high-level raider in World of Warcraftsaid it would be really helpful to him.

It’s still just a concept for now, but it’s exciting to see this type of technology getting ready to hit the mass market. What also sets Neurable apart is its portability. Unlike other brain-computer interfaces, this looks like a normal headset and all contacts are simply stored in the earcups. There’s no need for a giant headset with disks and wires attached, thanks to Neurable’s AI expertise. The company says that using such a compact form factor results in getting a small amount of data (and a lot of junk data, at that), but thanks to an AI model built into the device, it’s easily able to detect trends in your lens and translate them into something usable.

This seemed to be true in my demo, which ultimately felt somewhat like a guided meditation with real-time feedback. You can use it for something other than gaming, but it’s a smart use case for digital mind reading, and streaming plugins really take the cake, helping solidify the concept into a clear product with a concrete goal and target audience.

It will take some time for the gaming version of Neurable’s technology to be ready, although the company has said it hopes to release it this year. In the meantime, you can purchase an ultra-luxurious headset with Neurable’s mind reading built in, although it’s currently on pre-order and will cost you $500. It also won’t come with Prime or this streaming plugin, although as those are software-based, that could change in the future.