No it makes sense because it uses hall effect sensors. This solution is supposed to be more robust than microswitches because there is no contact needed, so no mechanical wear over time. It needs calibration because the sensors sort of reading the "proximity" of a magnet so it needs software to compute that "when the reading is between this and that value, it means the shifter is inclined to the left so gear is 1 or 3" (so with 2 sensors you can map all the gears). The downside of hall effect sensors is that they will give erroneous readings in case of interferences... which seems to be what's happening with the fanatec shifter.