Wireless brakes - is this even slightly a good idea?

I guess hoses can split, seals can fail & pistons crack also causing hydraulic brake failure.

Not  that I'm in favour, I still use cables for my dropper & gears & see no reason to change. 

I'd consider 3 important aspects that would need to be solved for wireless brakes to be a feasible

- Lag: did you notice how long it takes for the brakes to actuate after the lever pull? There are faster wireless systems out there that might work better (RS Reverb AXS seems to do okay in this department), but the mechanical component is also at fault: to have any meaningful braking power, you need a lot of force, which probably means a big reduction gearbox, which means slow movement.

- Feedback: There's no way I can modulate a brake without the lever feedback, like, have the pads engaged the rotor already, or do I keep pulling? Then there's the whole range where the lever almost doesn't move but you have all the force modulation.

- Reliability: Moar batteries. Wireless interference or noisy RF environments. Tiny motors with gearboxes and lots of finnicky stuff around them. And they have to keep working after you hit the deck one more time.

The only way I can see this being remotely safe, is that the default position is closed - being that if you run out of battery, the servo will return to the position in which the brakes engage. If you have them default open and something goes wrong on a descent and you try to brake...it's not going to end well. If they shut gradually, the worst that can happen is you have to push it out. 

Neat concept, and I like seeing people tinker, but no way would I ever use wireless brakes. I don’t care how much R&D goes into it. I’ve got no intention of even getting wireless shifting, would only look for a bike without it. 
 

But keep in mind I’m just a guy who rides a clapped out 14 year old bike, and is very fond of it. 

That's the case with these brakes, they have a 'failsafe' like that built in. It gets explained in the Tech video about them: 

It is interesting to see how many people are talking about failsafe systems when no existing brakes have them. All of our hydraulic brakes default to the open position regardless - as my friend found out when a rock flicked up and severed his rear brake hose (which is also why even though my bike has under-BB-routed cables and hoses, I route all of them above the BB shell)...

While it is true non of our existing brakes have failsafe, you can tell almost instantly if something has gone wrong. Barring a catastrophic failure, even with a (slowly) leaking brake you at least have access to some braking power. If the wireless one goes without a failsafe, there's potentially many situations where you have 0 brake power, which may lead to a much higher consequence. 

I've had avid brakes fail on me on 2 different bikes, one a rental while coming downhill in Topanga CA, the other my Camber Pro in Kansas. In Ks it was an annoyance but I finished the ride. In Ca I went over a berm and cartwheeled down a hill. So fuck anything that adds more complexity to brakes. Think about your Bluetooth phone, it connects to your car without issue everyday for a year. Then out of nowhere you have to reset the phone, or the car, or both. This is a stupid idea and whoever thought of it needs to be sent downhill without brakes...

Bring it on, brakes can already fail in a dozen different ways so how is this any different? Electronics has come a long way and the extra sensors you can build in to the system could easily provide a bunch of useful features like pad wear monitoring, temperature warnings and rider coaching (like brakeace) 

Feedback can be built in to the system, and even tuneable so if you like a "shimano" feel more than a "sram" feel you could dial in a different force map without needing to shell out for completely new brakes. Crash damage is probably improved - if you eliminate all the cables the bars can't spin around and tear them off any more!

Good points. I can't see a beneficial way around issues with 'feel' and modulation. Mainly for more capable or elite riders? Average Jane and novices won't know the difference..but a top tier pro or very capable rider will.

The tech you mention is certainly a plus point and hopefully the wireless system development leads to tech trickle down to the classic hydraulic systems. 

​​​​​​Even F1 and MotoGP still use hydraulic systems (F1 front only) because electronic actuated systems using potentiometers lack the haptic feedback needed for precision modulation.

​​​Would love to test a set though to feel for myself 

Battery for your brakes, battery for your dropper, battery for your drive train. Sounds like a big ole pointless pain in the butt.

Electric shifting I'm not totally against because I see how that could actually work better than cable actuated systems, but brakes and droppers are already flawless for how I use them. The 'benefits' of this technology are nowhere near justifying the extra cost and battery maintenance, IMO.