I struggled with posting this, and where to post it, but thought the HUBB Pub might be the best place to get your thoughts.

A few years ago, ARB released their LINX system which allowed users to control lights, accessories and even tire air pressure from the simple to use display in the cab. The LINX system was a success and now ARB is releasing a new standalone product to control tire pressure using the same technology from the LINX system, controlled by your cell phone. Leave your deflators and air pressure gauge at home and let the innovative ARB Compressor Connect module do the work for you. Utilizing a bluetooth module, the Compressor Connect system allows the user to set a target air pressure and simply hook up the air hose and relax.

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Grant Johnson
Seek, and ye shall find.
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Inspiring, Informing and Connecting travellers since 1997!
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

I'm not a fan of letting software do relatively simple things for me when I can do them myself quite easily.

I like the idea of dash controlled tire pressure, etc. But from my phone? I'm not sure I get the benefit of it. If I'm stopping to use my phone for this, I might as well just do it manually with my compressor and tire gauge.

You still have to get off the bike, get out and hook up the air hose, detach and put it away....? Plus you need your phone out, which means protecting it from the weather and having some bare fingers to manipulate the controls? I feel like I must be misunderstanding the point, since this doesn't seem like much of an advantage. Maybe if I could punch in a tire pressure without dismounting and the rest happened automatically.

Besides, I'm still going to carry a pump because, you know, there are electronic gremlins out there just waiting for me to let down my guard. Plus a pressure gauge, for the same reason. And what are these "deflators" that I'm going to be leaving at home?

Mark

I don't own a mobile phone so you can guess the rest.

Just a gizmo/gadget for the younger generation that thinks everything is controlled by an app, my 12v compressor has an analogue gauge on it & then i recheck it with another analogue gauge (ta be sure ta be sure) Simples.

Mezo.

TPMS will be mandatory within 5 years, so the monitoring bit seems pointless but maybe useful for retrofit systems, the displays are never as well developed as a smartphone.

I dislike anything that can let air out of tyres. All valves leak. The 150 year old schreader valve made by a known tyre manufacturer is proven and leaks a fraction of nothing when you catch some air and vacuum it. Chinese tat screw on magic eyeball things can result in a dangerously low, pressure in minutes because they use rolling O-rings on pressed surfaces and other stuff you wouldn't want in a kiddies bicycle pump never mind a 100 mph vehicle. This is a start-up company so my worry would be its Chinese tat not something Michelin tested in Finland.

It is not clear how the compressor attaches to the tyre. If you rig a hose how does it differ from a current compressor? The military have had cab valve controlled TIS since the 1940's so amphibious trucks can get off beaches. After 80 years no one has solved the problem of an air tight seal between fixed and moving parts. The military don't care, squaddies break everything anyway, there is no performance related pay and flat tyres at tye top of a beach is solved by sunbathing or airstrikes. We are a different market . Jost are close, they are using the axle case as a reservoir so the seal fixed to moving is buried and central. Fred in his shed runs plastic pipe down the mudguard!

On a JCB I'd wait until I can spec it as a TIS from the factory. On a Hilux probably the same but I also can manage without. On a bike I don't want it.

Andy

We've had on board pump up suspension on bikes for years - decades probably. My 15yr old Gold Wing has it. It has a button for up and a button for down and I don't suppose it's much of a stretch for Honda to dump the buttons and add a cartoon graphics app to do the same thing. Especially if you can voice control it via Siri / Alexa etc.

If you could find some way of connecting the suspension compressor to the tyres (and that, as Andy says, seems to be the 'difficult' area) then much the same app could double up and adjust your tyre pressures. Quite whether you'd want to let the ability to do that loose on the public is another matter. There's a quote from Colin Chapman (Lotus cars founder if you don't know him) about factory fitting adjustable suspension that goes 'if we make it adjustable they'll adjust it wrong'.

So what would you do with tyre pressures - make it an autonomic function with no user adjustability? If that's the case the ecu could do it and you need never know. If there's an app element involved it'll only be a matter of minutes before someone hacks it to add a manual override function (but to keep the costs down, leaves out the instructions). That's probably not a huge issue on JCBs / tractors or even off road bikes but on an edge of stability road bike spending its days on the autobahn ...

There's a long term trend to take safety critical stuff out of the hands of the average owner (or weekend bodger to give him his correct name ). So fiddling with your brakes (for example) is increasingly discouraged. Leave it to the professionals (or your warranty is voided if it's a new vehicle). I had to replace the brake pads on my wife's two year old Mini yesterday (there's funny scraping noise dear, can you have a look at it!). I went to buy them at my local(ish) factors - 'you don't have a trade account with us, do you do this professionally?' 'No'. 'We strongly advise taking it to a dealer.' Never had that before. On that basis I can't imagine putting tyre pressure control in the hands of a car driver nevermind a bike rider. I'm still having to manually override the (faulty) flashing blue tyre pressure warning screen that comes up on the Mini every time we start it. What's the auto pump going to do when it gets that signal on my bike front tyre?

Electric compressors have heat issues. There is one on a certain luxury 4x4 that lets the suspension lower for loading. The duty cycle is 3 minutes in the hour. So, lower, let granny out, raise, park up, lower to get your shopping out, forget something, try again, computer sez no. They bypass the electronics and each resulting puff of blue smoke is worth £500 of parts sales. They also try to cobble this neat little unit onto Transit vans etc, same result.

The only reason IMHO to adjust tyre pressures is off road. If you dial 3.7221 psi into your I-wad or the dashboard has a button with a tyre and mountain diagram seems largely immaterial? Either can have a speed cut out to re-inflate at road speed.

The system has to be idiot proof. I have many conversations with German engineers that involve the comment "but why would anyone do this?". George Mallory knew why.

To me I think you get the road racer to washboard track to bog mode via shocks or air springs first. A shock is just a solenoid to open or close oil holes, so no work. An airbag as a spring typically has about half the pressure as the matched tyre and can really lift/lower. Neither airbag nor shock rotates. We've been lowering the ride height on coaches at motorway speeds since 1982 to save a bit of Diesel.

Andy

On the bikes and even more especially whilst we travelled by boat, I hold to a theory that: If you don't fit it, then it can't break; but if it is fitted and working, you should try not to use it as it's only going to break.

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BobnLes

As much as I appreciate the benefits of apps and understand why bikes are being loaded with ever more electronics, I don't think technology for its own sake is a good idea. Not only does it add to cost and complexity, it means more things that can go wrong and the difficulty of fixing them when they do. I also dislike the thought of anything that could control a vehicle I'm using that is not initiated by me personally. We've already seen people stealing high end keyless cars using wireless devices, putting more technology at the end of a Bluetooth link is just asking for trouble.

It would be interesting seeing the techniques to connect the compressor / pressure vessel to tyres /tubes on wired wheels to justify an automatic system.

I see the benefit of a TPMS that actually states the pressure rather than just “tyre pressure low” as you may have lowered the pressure for a particular section but the complexity of a system just to save the effort of inflating your tyres to the correct pressure strikes me as being disproportionate. It is easy enough, once told, to inflate the tyre when you have the equipment.

So in answer to the original question. A step wasted.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.