A latest Fox wi-fi dropper submit patent utility takes good mountain bike know-how to a brand new degree of integration. Envisioning a world the place nearly every part in your bike is electronically managed, Fox is engaged on a wi-fi dropper submit that connects to their next-gen Reside Valve suspension, syncs to your electronic-shift drivetrain, pairs to all the prevailing sensors in your bike & physique, and even provides a couple of extra new ones, too. The tip objective appears to be multi-system automation – whether or not linked to GPS place knowledge, to your dwell energy output and heartrate ranges, and even reacting to your voice instructions…
Plus, this new dropper would add good user-customizable drop level, along with basic infinite-adjust drops!
A sensible Fox Wi-fi Dropper in improvement for years
We’ve seen Fox’s wi-fi dropper seatpost patent functions for greater than a decade (the earliest one I bear in mind dated again to 2013). And the core idea and visuals haven’t actually modified in any respect since then – a dropper submit that might be mechanically or electronically actuated, and doubtlessly linked to a number of techniques in your bike. However in these 10+ years, what has actually modified is increasingly more electronics on mountain bikes, smarter management techniques, and extra prospects for built-in and automatic controls.
Among the wildest controls that Fox may come up, now appear rather more believable in our minds – like a voice-activated dropper submit or perhaps a dropper that learns from previous rides and mechanically drops your saddle as you method a descent.
So what do we all know?
This latest Fox wi-fi dropper patent that they filed earlier this yr (and was simply printed this summer time US20240182131A1) apparently focuses extra on computerized shifting than it does on the dropper itself. However Fox’s core wi-fi dropper tech already acquired patent safety in February of this yr. That merely exhibits a dropper with an digital solenoid (365) inside the bottom to open and shut the valves that permit the dropper to go up and down. It exhibits potential antennas (1402A&B) on the dropper collar & seatpost head to speak with a distant, and energy connectors (1404A&B) that may draw energy from inside or exterior batteries.
What I feel this means? Fox’s upcoming wi-fi dropper submit is just about dialed-in. And now they dive deeper into the automated controls themselves.
Infinite AND stepped drops
What’s distinctive that we all know concerning the wi-fi dropper from these patent filings is that Fox is proposing a dropper submit that’s each infinitely adjustable and capable of be dropped to set heights. The attention-grabbing factor there, is that the tech to have infinite & stepped drops is just not particular to digital droppers, however may work on a mechanical dropper submit too. That’s as a result of they’ve two separate pairs of valves and launch circuits inside to activate both mode (see 530 A&B and 535 A&B in Fig. 10-13, under). So the two modes might be managed individually with two levers, a single 2-stage lever, or with sequential inputs to an digital lever.
Particularly on an digital dropper, due to an inside place sensor the rider may pre-program their perfect drop factors. Perhaps you want your submit absolutely prolonged for climbing however simply 2cm dropped for rolling trails? Even pre-setting higher and decrease stops may permit a motorbike producer or the tip consumer to restrict total journey, or restrict full top-out peak. For instance, the end-user may set their saddle peak with an digital cease. They usually may set how far they wish to submit to go down at most drop. That may even permit producers to place the identical most size dropper in all bikes, no matter dimension, and nonetheless let the customer simply customise their perfect place on the bike.
Inside this wi-fi dropper submit, the Fox patent additionally describes how the place sensors pair to digital actuators to feather the 4 valves that open & shut to permit vertical dropper motion. That lets them gradual the dropper because it reaches the specified journey set-point for smoother motion and correct stops at any level within the journey. So no top-out or bottom-out clunks… or overshooting the preset journey limits.
Dropper paired to every part digital
An enormous a part of the newest Fox Reside Valve patent that we reported on final yr, was how rather more linked it plans to be. And the way smarter additionally means extra lively. Now, we anticipate the upcoming Fox wi-fi dropper submit goes to get in on the good celebration, too. These newest patent docs described a dropper carefully synced with digital shifting and digital suspension damping controllers.
And automatic controls appear to be their largest function. Nonetheless don’t fear, there’s clear description of on-the-fly adjustability and a short lived pause in computerized controls each time the rider makes a guide override enter. But it surely appears to be like like Fox envisions dropper submit place, suspension compression damping (and in some way spring fee), and kit choice – all mechanically managed.
And automatic Fox wi-fi dropper management from all sensors
The Fox resolution sees a central processing unit and controller amassing knowledge from velocity, cadence, energy meter, rider coronary heart fee, GPS location, vertical acceleration, and inclination sensors. And crunching that knowledge to verify your bike is all the time within the optimum setting. Additionally they describe a voice activation system the place you can converse instructions to drop or increase your saddle to a predetermined peak, of drop/increase it absolutely. And there’s descriptions of a display, indicator LEDs, and even audible alerts (beeps?) that might affirm what mode or place your dropper submit is in.
“…the seat submit is actuated by a controller designed for receiving and analyzing enter related to a bike owner’s coronary heart fee in addition to the bike owner’s GPS coordinates. For instance, if the controller receives enter that describes the bike owner’s coronary heart fee as being decrease than a given preprogrammed threshold whereas driving, then the controller might sign to the seat submit to maneuver up or down, inflicting the bike owner’s work fee and coronary heart fee to extend or lower. In one other instance, if the controller receives enter that describes the bike owner’s GPS coordinates as being such that the bike owner is nearly to reach at terrain having a steep descent, the controller might trigger the seat submit to decrease in preparation for the descent.
…[or] following a pre-mapped route, for instance, predetermined seat submit peak and/or gear picks, or suspension settings might be embedded within the route map and the controller can sign the seat submit peak changer and kit changer to alter to the placement acceptable seat submit peak and/or shift to the placement acceptable gear mechanically.”
To us this all sounds fairly wild.
However, Fox has been engaged on a lot of this tech since a minimum of 2012 – earlier than XTR took mountain bikes digital with Di2 in 2014, lengthy earlier than SRAM pushed MTB wi-fi with AXS in 2019, or when Fox made Reside Valve digital suspension controls actual the summer time earlier.
So possibly it’s not as far-fetched because it sounds?
RideFox.com
