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

Neurable’s talk at CES 2026 is bold: what if performance tracking didn’t just include your mouse, keyboard, or heart rate, but also included your thoughts?

That idea is now incorporated into a pair of bulky but surprisingly comfortable gaming headphones, built in partnership with HP’s HyperX brand. Inside the headset are EEG sensors designed to read brain signals in real time, allowing Neurable software to track concentration, cognitive load and reaction speed while you play.

Credit: Chance Townsend / Mashable

I tried out Neurable’s neurotech headphones during a private demo with the team inside the Palazzo, away from the chaos of the lounge. The headset features thick earcups and fabric padding designed to hide the EEG sensors without looking like lab equipment.

It’s worth noting that Neurable didn’t start out in gaming. Much of the company’s underlying technology was developed in a university setting and tested with the Department of Defense, including applications to monitor brain health after exposure to a blast.

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

Before any “performance improvement,” the system establishes a baseline. Sitting at a demo station, I watched a live graph respond to nothing but my thoughts: concentration pushed the line up, distraction pulled it down. No calibration session, no capsules, no wires running over my scalp – something CEO Ramses Alcaide highlighted as a major hurdle that Neurable claims to have solved using AI-driven signal processing.

From there, the demo moved to Aimlabsa familiar FPS training tool used by esports players to measure accuracy and reaction time. The goal is to hit as many targets as possible within a fixed amount of time. My first run went well, but not spectacularly, and was also hampered by the fact that my contact lenses slipped off every time I concentrated too hard.

This benchmark execution was important because it paved the way for PRIME.

PRIME is Neurable’s neurofeedback system, and it’s best described as a personalized meditation warm-up for your brain. Instead of asking you to “clear your mind” in an abstract way, PRIME visualizes your concentration and cognitive load in real time. As you relax and concentrate, the dots on the screen slowly shrink into a single point, indicating that your brain is entering an optimal state.

Alicia Howell-Munson, the researcher who developed PRIME, described it less as a relaxation exercise and more as a cognitive adjustment. The session lasted a little over a minute for me. Others, I’m told, can take anywhere from 30 seconds to several minutes, depending on how tired, stressed, or how far from their baseline that day they are.

When it ended, 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 goal. Unfortunately, my contacts were still drifting.

Credit: Chance Townsend / Mashable

After PRIME, I took the same Aimlabs test. Despite my eyes fighting me, the numbers improved. I hit more targets and my reaction time decreased noticeably, from around 500 milliseconds to the mid 450 milliseconds.

This matches what Neurable claims to have observed in early testing. According to the company, daily gamers and esports athletes using PRIME showed average reaction time improvements of around 40 milliseconds, as well as gains in accuracy and target hitting. In competitive contexts, these margins are important.

The feeling afterwards was pretty nice, all things considered. Everything on the screen seemed slightly slower, but I reacted faster. Alcaide described it as “a watershed moment for your brain,” which sounds cheesy until you experience it.

Although it is still a proof of concept, the team has high expectations for this headset to hit the market in the very near future.

Head to the Mashable CES 2026 Hub for the latest news and live updates from the biggest tech show, where Mashable journalists report live.