We re-examine the case of rare-earth magnets rolling down an inclined plane, presenting an approach to conducting quantitative investigations that results in high-quality experimental data connecting simple experiments to a handful of important applications of eddy currents. These include not only magnetic braking but also the characterization of conductive materials, measurement of the thickness of dielectric coatings, and nondestructive evaluation of conductive objects. The simplicity of the proposed experimental setups, which include the use of widely available smart phones to record video that can be post-processed with free software, makes these experiments appealing to high school and college physics students.