Posted on Thursday 17 April 2008
New valve-caps, called P-eyes, which monitor the air pressure of the tire they’re attached to have hit the market. Pitched as a handy tool for commercial fleet owners, we don’t see why the tire-pressure monitoring caps wouldn’t work equally well on your personal vehicle.
The caps use LEDs combined with a sensor that causes them to blink when tire pressure falls below 95% of ideal. The system would make it possible to do a simple walk-around and know if your tires are properly inflated. Though you might think that’s as easy as looking at the tires themselves, modern tires, especially low-profile radials with stiff sidewalls, don’t show low-pressure symptoms as clearly as older tires once did.
Benefits of proper tire inflation are well known, including longer tire life, better fuel mileage and less chance of a blowout due to overheating or forcing the bead off the rim.
Pricing for the caps starts at £20 (US$40) for the standard version, while anti-theft caps cost £22 (US$44). Given that the blinking caps will draw attention to themselves whenever pressure runs even 5% low, it seems advisable to spend the extra 10% for the anti-theft version - especially on tractor-trailer rigs that could require as many as 10 or more of the caps.
They already have these, but instead of a blinking light they just change color.
oh AWESOME! like you dont have enough trouble keeping people from stealing ur stupid valve caps… now you have to make them worth something?!
“like you dont have enough trouble keeping people from stealing ur stupid valve caps… now you have to make them worth something?!”
+100
Where I live, those would be gone in about 3 minutes.
Motor Authority » New LED tire valve cap monitors pressure for you
New valve-caps, called P-eyes, which monitor the air pressure of the tire they’re attached to have hit the market. Pitched as a handy tool for commercial fleet owners, we don’t see why the tire-pressure monitoring caps wouldn’t work equally well …
$40 a piece? A little more than that is how much it costs to have a tyre pressure system for the whole car. One that displays warnings on the dashboard.
Call me back when these LED caps drop to $1.