And yet, Shane’s own testing shows that the Neo can suffer from accuracy issues when used at higher gearing/flywheel speeds (I might be able to dig up the FB post, but he shared some interesting data and observations). There are real cases where the Neo is not the most accurate power data, and not “perfect”.
This appears to be a common trait with most wheel-off trainers as a result of how they measure/estimate power. Notably, most of them do not feature an actual strain gauge that is present in a regular power meter. They use advanced measurement of the trainer speed and electrical properties measured in the system to make estimates (quite accurate in most cases, but estimates just the same) of the power values.
The exception is the Elite Drivo & Direto, that use and Optical Torque Sensor (OTS) that is a lot closer to an actual strain gauge. It measures the time gap between two sides of a shaft that have these segmented wheels installed. The shaft deflects via torsion when under load, and that can be very accurately measured to calculate power. It is more accurate in most cases when compared to the other trainers, especially on the Drivo that uses 2 lasers for a very accurate measurement of the torque displacement.