This page describes my software setup to communicate with the Muse brain-sensing headband.

I am running the Muse software on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015). These notes apply to using the Muse LSL software to communicate with the Muse or Muse 2 using a BLED112 bluetooth USB dongle.

Base software environment:

• Mac OS Mojave (10.14.3)
• Default Python 2.7, but Python 3.x preferred

These instructions are based largely on Installing Python 3 on Mac OS X from The Hitcher's Guide to Python.

Open a terminal (e.g., iTerm) to run these commands.

• Install XCode Command Line Tools following instructions at More Downloads for Apple Developers.
• Install Homebrew¹⁾ using the command:

$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

• Adjust PATH, if necessary²⁾.
• Install Python using this command:³⁾

$ brew install python

$ mkdir muse
$ cd muse

$ virtualenv -p python2 py2
$ source py2/bin/activate

$ virtualenv -p python3 py3
$ source py3/bin/activate

When done working with muse, either close the terminal window, or deactivate the virtual environment with…

$ deactivate

Muse software is described at Muse LSL.

$ pip install muselsl

Plug in the Bluetooth USB (BLED112) dongle and turn on your Muse headband before running muselsl.

$ muselsl stream

Open another terminal window, switch to the install directory, and run the visualizer:

$ cd muse
$ muselsl view -v 2

If some packages show up as missing when installing muselsl, install them manually:

$ pip install nose coverage

If an old version of a package (e.g., scipy) was installed using (the old) distutils, the new version might have problems uninstalling it. In that case, use the –ignore-installed option:

$ pip install --ignore-installed scipy

If when installing scipy, it complains that matplotlib is not installed, then install it directly:

$ pip install matplotlib

If some packages cannot be installed in the virtual environment (or in the system environment), use –user to install them locally (in the user's ~/Library folder):

$ pip install muselsl --user