Straight answers, tagged like everything else.

Not in total energy — coding rides on the same NdFeB and cannot exceed its ~52 MGOe energy product. What changes is where the force lives: fine patterns concentrate flux at the surface, so contact force (especially on thin steel) can beat a plain magnet of the same size, while force an inch away drops toward zero. “Up to 4–5× stronger” is a vendor claim; the independent data point is a K&J Magnetics test where an alternating-pole array out-pulled plain and Halbach arrays on steel, 88 vs 72–77 lb.

Reach. A coded magnet trades far-field reach for near-field intensity — ferocious at contact, nearly dead an inch away (CMR recommends working gaps under 2 mm for fine patterns). If your design needs pull at distance, coding works against you. If you need grip that doesn't leak into nearby sensors and cards, the catch is the feature.

The one verified coded-magnet customer is NASA: a Polymagnet twist-release flew on NASA Armstrong's Prandtl-M glider release, with five successful releases in 2021–22 tests. Beyond that, the broader engineered-multipole family ships at enormous scale — ABS encoder rings, the MagSafe/Qi2 ring, cochlear-implant magnets — and polymagnet.com displays other big logos we treat as unverified. See our Applications dossiers for the tagged inventory.

No free levitation. Earnshaw's theorem forbids stable static levitation of permanent magnets, and CMR's own FAQ says so plainly. The 'magnetic spring' floats at a designed gap only while constrained on a pin or shaft — every demo has one.

Function pairs run about $7–$45 retail; the twist-release demo pair is ~$35; the full demo kit (1002031) is $149; a plain magnet of similar size is under $2. Desktop magnetizing printers have sold around $45,000 and the Polyvision design software is $4,999/yr. The business case is what the one coded part deletes: springs, catches, fasteners, guides, assembly steps.

This is where coded magnets are unusually good: in a fine pattern the flux closes to neighboring maxels millimetres away, so the far field can be engineered toward zero — 'near zero beyond about a quarter inch' per the vendor. That's why they're interesting precisely where magnets are usually banned: next to Hall sensors, compasses, cards and instruments.

Same family, different code. Both are engineered magnetization with exponential near-field decay. A Halbach array is a periodic rotating-magnetization pattern that throws uniform flux out one side — motors, MRI, maglev. A coded magnet is an aperiodic, correlation-designed N/S pattern printed into one piece, which is what makes align wells, twist-release, springs and keyed pairs possible — force functions a Halbach can't express.

Catalog parts are at polymagnet.com (plus Amazing Magnets, PolarStar, and Industrial Magnetics for the Max-Attach line). Making your own means CMR's ecosystem: the software catalog, custom design services, or your own magnetizing printer. There is no second source — CMR holds the foundational patents until roughly 2028–30, when the earliest ones expire.

Maxels are roughly 1–4 mm; the smallest engineered part CMR cites is about 4 mm across. Standard demo parts are rated to about 60 °C — higher-temperature substrates like SmCo exist for harder environments. Patterns print on sintered NdFeB, SmCo, flexible NdFeB and ferrites.

The pattern is programmable at manufacture — printed in seconds by a computer-controlled magnetizer — not at runtime; once printed, the magnet is a fixed passive part. (Runtime switchability is the electropermanent/Magswitch world — 'programmable in time' rather than in space.) The 'first fundamental advance in magnets in 180 years' line you may have seen is a vendor testimonial, not our judgment.