You can buy the Neuralink logo and still not have a product a hospital can order. PRIME is an early feasibility study. Synchron's COMMAND is done and the 2026 pivotal is the next gate. Precision's Layer 7 is FDA-cleared for thirty days. Blackrock is the research Utah Array. Those are four surgical paths, not four SKUs on a catalog page. A trial is not a product until a hospital can order it.
The four below are the living platforms a hospital, medtech, or academic lab would actually call in 2026. A trial is not a product until a hospital can order it.
Neuralink is the name that comes up first. The Participant 1 threads are the usual map: high-bandwidth threads, a robot, an early feasibility study. The craniotomy question is the one that leads a hospital to Synchron. Precision and Blackrock are the thirty-day and research-array doors that conversation usually skips.
Neuralink
Neuralink is the high-bandwidth intracortical bet. The N1 Implant is a skull-mounted, wireless, rechargeable package. The R1 Robot inserts polymer threads (the company describes 1,024 electrodes across 64 threads) into motor cortex. The software surface patients use is Telepathy: cursor, clicks, gaming, browsing.
The clinical vehicle is PRIME (NCT06429735): Precise Robotically IMplanted Brain-Computer InterfacE, an early feasibility study in people with tetraplegia from cervical spinal cord injury or ALS. Status on ClinicalTrials.gov is recruiting. First implant was January 2024 (Noland Arbaugh). Primary completion is estimated June 2026; the record still lists estimated enrollment of 15. Public reporting in early 2026 put global implants across PRIME variants in the low twenties.
Related studies exist around the same implant: CONVOY for robotic-arm control, VOICE for speech. Blindsight has Breakthrough Device designation; human work is a separate program. A $650 million Series E closed in June 2025. None of that makes N1 a commercial device.
Best for: Academic medical centers and investigators who need intracortical bandwidth and will run an IDE protocol with Neuralink's robot and implant.
Key Features:
- N1 wireless implant plus R1 robotic thread insertion. High channel count relative to endovascular systems.
- PRIME: first-in-human early feasibility, recruiting, primary completion estimated June 2026 (NCT06429735).
- Telepathy software for digital control. CONVOY and VOICE sit on the same implant family.
- Sites named on the PRIME record include Barrow Neurological Institute and University of Miami; international PRIME variants have been announced separately.
Why we like it: If the task is high-degree-of-freedom cursor or device control, thread density is the point of the design. The trial record is public and dated. That is more useful than a keynote.
Notable Limitations:
- Open craniotomy and a custom robot. That is a different consent conversation than a day-case endovascular procedure.
- Early thread-retraction issues in the first patient are part of the public record. Later cases are the company's claim that the design changed.
- Not for sale. No PMA. No public price. The PRIME record is still recruiting. Enrollment figures in the press will disagree with the listed 15. Use the trial record.
Pricing: Not publicly available. Access is through clinical trials and research sites. Contact Neuralink clinical.
Synchron
Synchron is the endovascular path. Stentrode goes in through the jugular, sits in a blood vessel over motor cortex, and never opens the skull. Motor-intent signals become digital clicks and cursor moves on a consumer device. Breakthrough Device designation came in August 2020. COMMAND was the first FDA IDE trial of a permanently implanted BCI in the United States.
On 30 September 2024 Synchron reported COMMAND: six participants, 12 months, primary safety endpoint met. No device-related serious adverse events resulting in death or permanent increased disability, and no serious brain or vasculature events. The device deployed on target in all six cases. Median deployment time was 20 minutes. Sites included Mount Sinai, University at Buffalo Neurosurgery, and UPMC.
A $200 million Series D on 6 November 2025 (about $345 million total) is earmarked for a 2026 pivotal trial and first-generation commercial prep. That pivotal is the gate to a PMA filing. It has not read out. Apple's BCI-HID path (iPad, iPhone, Vision Pro) is a real integration story. Approval is a separate file.
Best for: Hospital systems and investigators who want a less invasive implant for severe paralysis and digital access, and who can wait on a pivotal before anyone writes “approved.”
Key Features:
- Endovascular Stentrode. No craniotomy. Wireless, internalized system.
- COMMAND: first U.S. IDE for a permanently implanted BCI. Six of six hit the 12-month primary safety endpoint (30 Sep 2024).
- Median 20-minute deployment in COMMAND. Works with consumer accessibility stacks, including the Apple BCI-HID path announced in 2025.
- 2026 pivotal funded by the November 2025 Series D. PMA is the intended next regulatory step.
Why we like it: The procedural profile is the product. If the constraint is “we will not open the skull,” this is the platform with U.S. IDE data and a dated safety readout.
Notable Limitations:
- Channel count and bandwidth sit well below intracortical arrays. Fine motor or high-rate speech decoding is the other control.
- COMMAND is six people and safety. Efficacy at scale is the pivotal's job.
- Still trial-only. No list price. No commercial implant you can order. The November 2025 Series D funds a 2026 pivotal. We could not find a public NCT for that pivotal. Ask before you write it into a 2026 protocol.
Pricing: Not publicly available. Clinical research and partnerships. Contact Synchron.
Precision Neuroscience
Precision Neuroscience is the surface-array path. Layer 7 is a thin-film cortical interface (1,024 microelectrodes on a film the company describes as a fraction of a human hair) that sits on cortex and does not penetrate it. Founder Benjamin Rapoport left Neuralink to make that opposite bet.
FDA cleared Layer 7-T on 30 March 2025 (K242618). Precision announced it on 17 April 2025. Indication: record, monitor, and stimulate electrical activity on the brain's surface for up to 30 days. That is a Class II cortical electrode clearance, substantially equivalent to existing subdural grids. Intraoperative mapping and short-stay research. The fully implantable wireless system is still in development. Precision had tested the array in 37 patients at announcement, during scheduled neurosurgery. A 21 July 2026 research write-up described able-bodied volunteers using Layer 7 for cursor control while the temporary array was in. Chronic wireless implants are a later IDE.
Best for: Neurosurgery programs that want a high-density surface array they can place under a current clearance (mapping, short-stay research, BCI protocols that end at discharge) and that will not pretend 30 days is a permanent implant.
Key Features:
- Layer 7 thin-film array, 1,024 contacts, non-penetrating, micro-slit delivery.
- FDA 510(k) K242618, decision 30 March 2025, commercial use up to 30 days.
- Fits existing EEG head stages and OR workflows. Cleared for recording, monitoring, and stimulation on the cortical surface.
- Chronic wireless BCI is a separate device and a separate FDA path.
Why we like it: It is the only platform on this list with a full FDA clearance you can act on in 2026. The honesty is in the indication: thirty days, then it comes out.
Notable Limitations:
- Not a chronic implant. Marketing language that sounds like “get a BCI” is doing more work than K242618.
- Placement still needs a neurosurgical procedure (craniotomy or burr hole). Minimally invasive is not percutaneous.
- No public device price. Hospital capital and study budgets.
Pricing: Not publicly available. Contact Precision Neuroscience for clinical and commercial terms on Layer 7-T.
Did the 21 Jul demo make Layer 7 a product we can leave in?
No. K242618 is still a temporary cortical electrode, up to 30 days. The wireless chronic system needs its own IDE. The 510(k) summary does not say when that IDE files. Ask before you sign a protocol that assumes permanence.
Blackrock Neurotech
Blackrock Neurotech is the research incumbent. The Utah Array and NeuroPort stack have sat under two decades of BrainGate and related human work: cursor control, robotic limbs, speech decoding, stimulation. If a paper says “intracortical array in a human,” there is a good chance the hardware is Blackrock. Tether announced a $200 million investment in 2024 to push commercialization. Breakthrough Device designation exists on a BCI system. That is not a PMA.
The company now also distributes noninvasive research gear around the implant line. The buying motion is still capital equipment plus support contracts for labs and academic medical centers.
Best for: Academic labs and clinical research groups that need high-channel, high-fidelity intracortical recording (and often stimulation) and already have the surgical and decoder talent.
Key Features:
- Utah Array / NeuroPort: hundreds of channels, recording and stimulation options, the reference stack in many labs.
- Long human-study track record via BrainGate and related programs.
- Breakthrough Device designation on a BCI system; commercialization funded in part by the 2024 Tether investment.
- Noninvasive research products around the implant core, if the same lab also runs EEG or similar.
Why we like it: When the protocol needs single-unit or multi-unit timing and a decoder zoo, this is still the hardware people know how to sterilize, implant, and write against. Neuralink is the newer robot-and-thread story. Blackrock is the catalog the lab already has a PO history with.
Notable Limitations:
- Open-brain surgery, tissue response, and array longevity are the known tradeoffs. They have not gone away because the brand is familiar.
- A research-tools company becoming a commercial implant company is still the open question after the Tether check.
- No public price list. Budget as capital equipment and service, usually on a grant.
Pricing: Not publicly available. Contact Blackrock Neurotech. Expect a quote.
Four surgical paths
Bandwidth and invasiveness move together. Pretending they do not is how a protocol dies in IRB. An implant is a surgical path. A headset is a research EEG. OpenBCI and Emotiv stay off this shortlist because a hospital cannot write an implant PO for a headset.
Path versus what you can do in 2026
What we left out
Arctop is a living noninvasive cognition API (focus, workload) with mobile and Unity SDKs. Useful for XR experiments. It stays off a surgical shortlist. Nimbus does not have the independent clinical or commercial record to sit next to these four. Paradromics (high-bandwidth speech, Connect-One) and Science Corp are worth watching; they are not the 2026 buying set yet. OpenBCI and Emotiv are research/consumer EEG. Different job.
Questions before you pick a path
What control bandwidth do you actually need?
Switch-scanning a tablet is a different implant than decoding attempted handwriting or speech. Noninvasive EEG will not give you high-DOF motor control. An endovascular stent will not give you Utah-Array bandwidth. Write the task in bits per second before you pick a logo.
Is Layer 7 a commercial BCI I can leave in?
No. K242618 is a temporary cortical electrode, up to 30 days. The wireless chronic system is in development and needs its own IDE. If a vendor slide blurs that, the indication is still thirty days.
When does Synchron become a product?
After a pivotal and a PMA. The Series D funds that work in 2026. Until readout, it is a trial device with a strong safety package in six people.
Bottom line
Name the hole first. High-bandwidth intracortical, robot in the OR: Neuralink, through PRIME. No craniotomy, digital access for severe paralysis: Synchron, and watch the pivotal. A cleared array you can place this year for a short stay: Precision Layer 7-T, thirty days. A lab that already runs human intracortical work: Blackrock.
If the slide does not say trial, 510(k) indication, or capital quote, it is not a 2026 buy.
