Headphones that scan your brainwaves and keep you focused? It’s not science fiction.

For the past few months, when I really needed to get something done, I put on a special pair of headphones that could read my mind. Well, kind of. The headphones are equipped with a brain-computer interface that picks up electrical signals from my brain and uses algorithms to interpret that data. When my focus starts to slip, the headphones know it, and an app tells me to take a break.

It sounds like something out of science fiction, but a decade-old startup called Neurable is pioneering the technology, and it’s preparing to put the brain-tracking tricks into more gadgets. Earbuds, glasses, helmets — anything that can get an electrode near your head could provide a real-time stream of data about what’s going on inside of it. Neurable’s technology uses a combination of electroencephalograp