Softening is a chemical process. Period. When hardness, in the form of calcium and magnesium ions, is dissolved in water, it has a positive charge (+2). As water is passed through a softner resin bed, those ions attached themselves to the resin, releasing 2 sodium ions (+1, each). Now the soft water no longer has hardness ions to create hard deposits in your appliances and on surfaces in your home. The salt you hate to lug(and no one likes to do it) is used to make a strong brine solution to regenerate the resin. As the strong brine passes over the resin, it forces the calcium a magnesium off of the resin and replaces them with sodium again, ready to soften more water.

There is NO SUCH THING as electronic, magnetic or other voodoo softening. You cannot, by virtue of an electrical current or magnetic field, change the fundamental properties of a calcium ion to prevent it from causing scale, except for the exact location where the field is located. Once that water is heated up, in your hot water heater for instance, or the water is disturbed at all (running through your pipes will do it), you no longer have any effect at all from the magnetic field and you're right back where you started. Scaling.

I find it particularly interesting that the company you are looking at does not in any way actually explain their "technology" nor do they list any companies they work with. Their pictures are bogus and unverified and their assertions are ridiculous. They are counting on the fact that most people do not know enough about water chemistry to realize their assertions are fundamentally flawed.

My credentials: Chemical engineer with 10 years of water treatment experience. I have specified treatment for boilers and cooling water treatment for anything from small commercial units to huge industrial facilities. At all times before new treatment was allowed, the perspective water treatment companies had to prove their recommendations at the facility in question. Funny thing, but all of the no-salt "softener" folks refused a real-world test, every time, without exception. They all wanted me to purchase their systems without independent verification. Gee, I wonder why? You cannot soften water without removing the hardness.