Yes, but for racing bikes, which are the target market for wireless shifting in 2025, the efficiency losses of an internal hub are a non-starter.

The casuals whose bikes haven't seen a wrench since they were assembled aren't buying wireless groupsets. For them: we're in agreement about belts and internally geared hubs.

Automatic shifting has yet to prove itself to be more than a curiosity. A 20-something year old Autobike came into the shop I was wrenching in. It still worked shockingly well for being covered in rust. In good shape it would be an entirely adequate solution, if only it solved a problem anyone had.

My money is on e-bikes entirely supplanting any demand there may have ever been for automatic shifting on a bicycle. The motors have enough oomph that they make a lot of shifts unnecessary if you're not looking to maximize speed/battery life/whatever.

That's long-term maintenance for commuters and casual riders. This product is for competitive and serious riders, and it reduces another type of maintenance (setting up and maintaining their bike for high performance).

The answer is YES, and this type of shifter is a favorite among mountain bikers whose reliability needs and "field conditions" are already much more challenging than your average biker.

There are plenty of examples of situations where a wireless setup simplifies things.

I used to put wired speed/cadence sensors on my bike. Now I just zip tied two BLE gyros to the wheel and crank and things are vastly simpler. I've had them there for years and still haven't changed the battery. I've also never tangled the cables or had to fiddle with the mounts for a magnetic sensor.

It simplifies installation and getting a reliable, comfortable shifting setup, yes. Installation is simplified, especially in the case of internal and headset routing, which is something the target audience would deal with in case of cable-actuated derailleurs. Changes requiring adjustments over time due to the cable wearing out or stretching are eliminated, simplifying maintenance, both during and in between rides. On drivetrains with front and rear derailleurs, it has an optional adjustable algorithm that shifts both together for you and chooses the best gear combinations as you press up and down, simplifying operations. Auto-shifting is available on some models. There's more possibilities to put the shift buttons in the most ergonomic place, or even put them in more than one place, simplifying setting up your bike for comfort. That it doesn't simplify fixing your derailleur in the middle of a ride doesn't negate all of its benefits. Yes, the radio or battery could fail, but on the other hand it is less prone to go out of adjustment.

Also it has one killer feature and everyone that tries one also raves about how well it works. You know those little ramps stamped into the side of the sprockets on a cassette, that the chain moves up and down on as you change gears? Di2 delays your shift precisely until the start of a ramp, which makes shifting faster and works much better under load. That crunch and possible stuck chain when you shift to start a climb is basically eliminated.

Is it something a bikepacker will choose? Probably not. Is is something attractive to many other types of cyclists and simpler to install, use and maintain in ways they care about? Yes. I'm a weekend mountain bike rider, not at all competitive. I personally won't get one because of the cost but the features are quite attractive to me, while the risk and consequence of a dead battery seem low. There are many, many other things that are more likely to break during a ride, many of which will have you walking back. A dead Di2 battery means you are stuck in one gear, and if your chain has a master link or you carry a chain tool (target demographic definitely has one or both) you can change the gear in 2 minutes.

I thought of an analogy for HN. Think about water cooling in a gaming PC instead using the stock CPU cooler. It's more expensive, but generally higher performing and quieter and arguably looks cool. There's a certain demographic who thinks they are stupid because they must have extra parts so which are difficult to install and must be less reliable, and they may have one horrible failure mode of leaking liquid inside your PC. They might give the example of a mission critical server, and be right for this use case that it's not a good idea, at least at the scale of one machine. There's another demographic who don't think twice about buying them because the positives easily outweigh the negatives for them. This group can sometimes be seen telling the other group that they are out of date on it being difficult to install (you can even buy a case with it pre-installed) and reliability (modern all-in-ones almost never leak). They will most likely concede that for a mission critical server it's not the correct product.

Honestly, routing the cables through the headset introduces so many tight bends, I suspect you'll get better long-term reliability with wireless. Plus, there are no connections to make waterproof aside from the battery.

You're talking about charging... monthly? With a system that gives clear warnings early that you're low on battery?

I'm already charging my GPS, headphones, bike lights, etc. regularly. This has been an absolute non-issue to me.

If the battery lasted for 100 miles, sure. But I'm getting ~1000 miles a charge.

Well the whole point was that it is technically the same here.

We can do that. (I barely “measure” in the sense that I’m lazy and just pedal slowly, haha).

But there’s a well established community of really hardcore bicycle hobbyists. The folks paying a couple thousand dollars for shifters want fancy stuff. Some want graphs and numbers. shrug

> What ever happened to measuring speed, cadence and pedal force using your body and mind?

How do you export a time series of that?

Well speed is something a large portion of cyclists have always wanted. Adding a cycle computer or even a mechanical speedometer in earlier times was always popular. Now GPS units and smartphone mounts, or just logging your ride in an app using your phone or smartwatch are popular.

Cadence and pedal force are very useful for training and competition (organised or the self-improvement kind), so pretty much for the same cyclists that would also want wireless shifting.

Friction shifters suck really bad, if you ride your bike more than once a month. Having to feel out the right shift point, adjusting front derailleur trim, remembering where you are in the gearing so you can avoid cross-chaining, having things shift slightly differently as your cable stretches over time, all of it sucked. I know the retrogrouch nostalgia goggles are an entire market sector in cycling, but 100% of the time people who spend a lot of time on bicycles prefer electronic shifting in practice. I'm old enough to have had friction shifters on my downtube, and I'm not going back.

https://youtu.be/yKQBR1ohtIA I mean this. Whatever's the proper name for it. The video makes it look easy, but the reality of it is that

* Spokes don't really fit into the hole (and you aren't really going to pull a spoke out of the wheel to take the wheel off anyways). * Adjusting the tension on the cable takes many tries. And you can't really adjust it without taking the wheel off. So, you put it together, try riding it and see if the speeds switch properly. Once you see they don't, you take the wheel off, pull the cable a little bit. Rinse and repeat.

Not to mention that the parts are very small and easy to lose if you have to make an emergency repair. It's very sensitive to dirt.

It looks more "compact" and out of sight, and from what I can tell from talking to my Dutch friends / acquaintances: punctures don't happen that often because roads are kept relatively clean. And people would generally just go to a bike shop and pay to have things fixed. So, decreased reliability and difficulty in maintenance don't bother them.