New patent suggests Shimano is designing a fully wireless groupset

Shimano’s electronic groupsets could receive a makeover in the future to go fully wireless, judging by two patents recently published by the Japanese brand.

The patents, first spotted by Road.cc, appear to show a different design to what the brand currently uses, with separate batteries located in each of the derailleurs.

Up until recently, Shimano’s electronic groupsets were still wired, but that has changed on the latest Dura-Ace, Ultegra and 105 Di2 groupsets (hydraulic disc brake models). These were converted to semi-wireless set-ups, whereby they communicate wirelessly to the shifters but are connected to a centrally-housed battery by wires – hence the semi-wireless name.

Read more: Shimano reveals new 8-speed ESSA groupset aimed at entry-level cyclists

These are far from the first patents Shimano has submitted on the subject but is the latest to indicate that it will soon join its main rivals, SRAM and Campagnolo, by adopting the fully wireless design.

SRAM was the first of the three major brands to use the system for its eTap AXS groupsets, before Campagnolo joined them through the Super Record EPS, which was released last year.

Both of Shimano's patents were submitted on 20 February but US-20240092456-A1 was published first on 21 March and contains pictures showing a rear derailleur with a cuboid device housed within. This is labelled as an “electric power source”, suggesting the derailleur will be home to a battery. It’s a significant change from how Shimano’s electronic groupsets have previously worked, with the battery housed centrally in the bike, usually in the seatpost.

If there were any doubts, patent US 11958568 B2 – published on 16 April – shows the same picture with the “electric power source” once again present. Neither patent has a picture of a front derailleur, but hidden within the text of the latter patent, Shimano mentions that “each of the bicycle components RD and FD includes an electric power source such as a battery”, with RD and FD referring to the rear and front derailleurs, respectively. This suggests that both derailleurs will house a battery, resulting in a fully wireless groupset. It’s unclear if these batteries would be interchangeable, as is the case for SRAM’s AXS groupsets.

However, Shimano states that both batteries can still be connected to other power sources via an electric cable. This, presumably, means that it would be possible to run the system how it currently operates with a centrally-housed battery.

The patents don’t give any indication as to which of the groupsets the system will potentially be used for.

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Shimano

Shimano is a bike component manufacturer based in Osaka, Japan. The company is one of the industry’s most popular manufacturers and it makes up around three-quarters of the bicycle component market by value.