Patent Patrol: Fox Wi-fi Dropper’s Infinite & Stepped Journey to get Voice & Auto GPS Drop
A present Fox wi-fi dropper put up patent software program takes good mountain bike know-how to a model new stage of integration. Envisioning a world the place nearly the whole thing in your bike is electronically managed, Fox is engaged on a wi-fi dropper put up that connects to their next-gen Keep Valve suspension, syncs to your electronic-shift drivetrain, pairs to all the current sensors in your bike & physique, and even gives plenty of further new ones, too. The highest goal seems to be multi-system automation – whether or not or not linked to GPS place data, to your keep power output and heartrate ranges, and even reacting to your voice directions…
Plus, this new dropper would add good user-customizable drop degree, together with fundamental infinite-adjust drops!
A smart Fox Wi-fi Dropper in development for years
We’ve seen Fox’s wi-fi dropper seatpost patent features for higher than a decade (the earliest one I take into accout dated once more to 2013). And the core concept and visuals haven’t really modified the least bit since then – a dropper put up that would probably be mechanically or electronically actuated, and doubtless linked to plenty of methods in your bike. Nonetheless in these 10+ years, what has really modified is more and more extra electronics on mountain bikes, smarter administration methods, and further potentialities for built-in and computerized controls.
A variety of the wildest controls that Fox would possibly come up, now seem far more plausible in our minds – like a voice-activated dropper put up or maybe a dropper that learns from earlier rides and robotically drops your saddle as you methodology a descent.
So what do everyone knows?
This newest Fox wi-fi dropper patent that they filed earlier this yr (and was merely revealed this summer season US20240182131A1) curiously focuses further on computerized shifting than it does on the dropper itself. Nonetheless Fox’s core wi-fi dropper tech already obtained patent security in February of this yr. That merely displays a dropper with an digital solenoid (365) inside the underside to open and shut the valves that allow the dropper to go up and down. It displays potential antennas (1402A&B) on the dropper collar & seatpost head to talk with a distant, and power connectors (1404A&B) that will draw power from inside or exterior batteries.
What I really feel this implies? Fox’s upcoming wi-fi dropper put up is nearly dialed-in. And now they dive deeper into the automated controls themselves.
Infinite AND stepped drops
What’s distinctive that everyone knows regarding the wi-fi dropper from these patent filings is that Fox is proposing a dropper put up that’s every infinitely adjustable and able to be dropped to set heights. The eye-grabbing issue there, is that the tech to have infinite & stepped drops simply isn’t specific to digital droppers, nevertheless would possibly work on a mechanical dropper put up too. That’s on account of they’ve two separate pairs of valves and launch circuits inside to activate each mode (see 530 A&B and 535 A&B in Fig. 10-13, underneath). So the 2 modes may probably be managed individually with two levers, a single 2-stage lever, or with sequential inputs to an digital lever.
Significantly on an digital dropper, due to an inside place sensor the rider would possibly pre-program their glorious drop elements. Maybe you need your put up completely extended for climbing nevertheless merely 2cm dropped for rolling trails? Even pre-setting increased and reduce stops would possibly allow a bike producer or the highest individual to limit normal journey, or limit full top-out high. For example, the end-user would possibly set their saddle high with an digital stop. And they also would possibly set how far they want to put as much as go down at most drop. That may even allow producers to put the similar most dimension dropper in all bikes, irrespective of dimension, and nonetheless let the shopper merely customise their glorious place on the bike.
Inside this wi-fi dropper put up, the Fox patent moreover describes how the place sensors pair to digital actuators to feather the 4 valves that open & shut to allow vertical dropper movement. That lets them sluggish the dropper as a result of it reaches the desired journey set-point for smoother movement and proper stops at any degree inside the journey. So no top-out or bottom-out clunks… or overshooting the preset journey limits.
Dropper paired to the whole thing digital
An infinite part of the latest Fox Keep Valve patent that we reported on ultimate yr, was how far more associated it plans to be. And the best way smarter moreover means further energetic. Now, we anticipate the upcoming Fox wi-fi dropper put up goes to get in on the great event, too. These latest patent docs described a dropper rigorously synced with digital shifting and digital suspension damping controllers.
And computerized controls look like their largest attribute. However don’t worry, there’s clear description of on-the-fly adjustability and a brief lived pause in computerized controls every time the rider makes a information override enter. However it certainly appears to be like Fox envisions dropper put up place, suspension compression damping (and one way or the other spring worth), and tools alternative – all robotically managed.
And computerized Fox wi-fi dropper administration from all sensors
The Fox decision sees a central processing unit and controller amassing data from tempo, cadence, power meter, rider coronary coronary heart worth, GPS location, vertical acceleration, and inclination sensors. And crunching that data to make sure your bike is always inside the optimum setting. As well as they describe a voice activation system the place you’ll converse directions to drop or enhance your saddle to a predetermined high, of drop/enhance it completely. And there’s descriptions of a show, indicator LEDs, and even audible alerts (beeps?) that may confirm what mode or place your dropper put up is in.
“…the seat put up is actuated by a controller designed for receiving and analyzing enter associated to a motorbike proprietor’s coronary coronary heart worth along with the bike proprietor’s GPS coordinates. For example, if the controller receives enter that describes the bike proprietor’s coronary coronary heart worth as being lower than a given preprogrammed threshold whereas driving, then the controller would possibly signal to the seat put as much as maneuver up or down, inflicting the bike proprietor’s work worth and coronary coronary heart worth to increase or decrease. In a single different occasion, if the controller receives enter that describes the bike proprietor’s GPS coordinates as being such that the bike proprietor is sort of to succeed in at terrain having a steep descent, the controller would possibly set off the seat put as much as lower in preparation for the descent.
…[or] following a pre-mapped route, as an example, predetermined seat put up high and/or gear alternate options, or suspension settings shall be embedded inside the route map and the controller can signal the seat put up high changer and tools changer to range to the position acceptable seat put up high and/or shift to the position acceptable gear robotically.”
To us this all sounds pretty wild.
Nonetheless, Fox has been engaged on a number of this tech since not lower than 2012 – sooner than XTR took mountain bikes digital with Di2 in 2014, prolonged sooner than SRAM pushed MTB wi-fi with AXS in 2019, or when Fox made Keep Valve digital suspension controls precise the summer season earlier.
So maybe it’s not as far-fetched as a result of it sounds?
