edit: delete since incorrect
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Nice writeup - pretty much what my understanding was. I have a lifefitness gym bike from the early 2000s and I think it works exactly the same way, except the display reports cal/hr instead of watts. It’s funny, I can’t imagine there’s a patent on this tech anymore so I’m puzzled why all trainers aren’t built this way. It doesn’t even seem they should be all that expensive. Perhaps it’s just one of those market segmentation things… over-charge now for lower volume instead of immediately saturating the market with reasonably priced units and risking the market collapsing in 2 years. Meh. Love my neo, though – I don’t have the patience to deal with this spindown calibration nonsense.
You are probably paying more for the firmware written by Tacx than you are anything else. Engineers who can work well across the hardware/software divide are difficult to come by.
(Just a guess)
This is the same technology that Computrainer used back in the day. I tore apart an old unit to see what was in side, and saved the magnets for any future nerd projects.
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Actually Neo brake is not eddy current brake, it uses motor brake technology. Neo features down hill drive which is not possible with without motor. If one look linked video at 4:28 there is magnets on rotating part and coils at stationary part. Eddy current brake effect happens when conducting part moves in magnetic field, this is usually done with stationary magnets and rotating metal disk. Stationary magnets can be permanent magnets or/and electro magnets. Tacx Flux uses eddy current brake. Internal photos can be found on FCC report: https://fccid.io/2AAMI-T2900/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-3161868
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Thanks for the clarification!