  Observing brain activity in real-world settings offers exciting possibilities
like the support of physical health, mental well-being, and thought-controlled
interaction modalities. The development of such applications is, however,
strongly impeded by poor accessibility to research-grade neural data and by a
lack of easy-to-use and comfortable sensors. This work presents the
cost-effective adaptation of concealed around-the-ear EEG electrodes (cEEGrids)
to the open-source OpenBCI EEG signal acquisition platform to provide a
promising new toolkit. An integrated system design is described, that combines
publicly available electronics components with newly designed 3D-printed parts
to form an easily replicable, versatile, single-unit around-the-ear EEG
recording system for prolonged use and easy application development. To
demonstrate the system's feasibility, observations of experimentally induced
changes in visual stimulation and mental workload are presented. Lastly, as
there have been no applications of the cEEGrids to HCI contexts, a novel
application area for the system is investigated, namely the observation of flow
experiences through observation of temporal Alpha power changes. Support for a
link between temporal Alpha power and flow is found, which indicates an
efficient engagement of verbal-analytic reasoning with intensified flow
experiences, and specifically intensified task absorption.
