I’ve had the Halo Sport for a couple of days now. I just wanted to give my initial impressions on it.
I bought this mainly to increase the efficiency of my piano practice. Ive reached that age where new things take a long time for me to learn. Setup was a breeze and it has always maintained good contact with my scalp.
Now to the main part. I’ve noticed that my piano playing focus has improved. I feel I am in the zone. I finished a piece which I was struggling with and also made great progress on another piece. Now all this could very well be what is known as a placebo affect. I’ve been a statistician in the medical area for a very long time and I know all about the powerful effect of the placebo. It is even more effective when you go through a ritual. Wetting the primers, putting on the headset, the tingling sensation you get in your scalp from the electrons sent by the primers, firing the app which then gives you a nice fiery circle like as if your brain was on fire, the 20 minutes countdown and the promise that the effect will last for exactly 1 hour and a timer for that. This is a powerful ritual.
But make no mistake about it, even a placebo effect is real. So whether or not it is neurological priming or the placebo effect or more likely a combination of both, I have felt the effect and it has vastly improved my practice and so will continue using it.
Regards
Mario
Notes:
1. Some of the reviews mention statistical significance or its absence in the studies conducted by the company. But I think the reviewers seem to confuse statistical significance with clinical importance. As a statistician I have seen this sort of confusion among researchers and other people with no statistical background. Let me attempt to explain the difference.
A net effect ( total effect minus the placebo effect) may be real (different from zero) and clinically important but may not be proven to be statistically significant only because you did not have enough of persons in your study (lack of sample power).
On the other hand a net effect may be real (different from zero) but clinically unimportant, but be statistically significant because you had too many people in your study.
Thus statistically siginificance is only part of the picture to deem a net effect as being meaningful, the others are clinical importance and having enough of sample power.
Think of reaching statistical significance as as providing enough evidence and people are the evidence. You may not be able to provide enough of evidence either because there is genuinely no net effect or because you don’t have enough people.
Also the smaller the real net effect the larger the number of people you require in your study to provide enough evidence for it.
2. Many medical products out in the market work because they have a big placebo effect. This is especially the case in mental health products like for example anti-depressants.
3. The results of studies are based on average net effect. That is the average effect of the treatment group minus the average effect of the placebo group. The benefits varies a great deal especially for such a product which depends on so many individual-level factors . Some people receive a lot of benefit and some people receive very little. Thus by its very nature there will be mixed reviews here with some people complaining that it does not work and some people raving about how good it is. You can only determine which category you fall in by trying the product. I think this is the reason the company has a 30 day return policy.
| Item Package Dimensions L x W x H | 12.44 x 12.28 x 8.98 inches |
|---|---|
| Package Weight | 2.4 Kilograms |
| Item Dimensions LxWxH | 9.84 x 7.09 x 9.84 inches |
| Item Weight | 0.75 Pounds |
| Brand Name | Halo |
| Model Name | Halo Sport System v1 |
| Color | Black |
| Manufacturer | Halo Sport |
| Part Number | HS001K |
| Model Year | 2016 |
| Included Components | Closed earpads, USB charging cable, Spray bottle, Open earpads (pre-installed), Halo Sport headset, Audio cable with microphone, USB wall adapter, Quick-dry carrying case, Primer recharge kit, Primers x3 |
