BENGALURU: Worrying about the air pressure in you car’s tyres might seem like a trivial thing, but it could be a matter of life and death.
In 2014, a survey carried out by the Ahmedabad traffic police on accidents along the Ahmedabad-Vadodara Expressway found that at least 15 per cent of the accidents were due to over-inflated tyres.
A city-based tech startup has now come up with a tyre pressure monitoring system that can be operated through one’s phone.
Called SensAiry, the device uses sensors and low-energy bluetooth communication integrated with a mobile phone. The system can be used to monitor the tyre pressures of around 4 cars at one time and also sends out an alert if the tyre pressure goes below 20 per cent of the safety limit.
“Research shows that a car running without the right pressure will have a very low mileage, more fuel usage which in turn results in high emissions,” said Prabu Surendra, CEO of Tymtix. SensAiry is its flagship product.
While the concept of a tyre-pressure monitoring system was always there, the ingenuity of SensAiry according to Prabhu is its seamless integration with the phone. “The information appears in the form of a graph. There is also automatic analysis of this information to let users know what caution they should take,” says Prabhu.
The device can be used without changing the battery for five years.
Temperature monitoring
Besides the tyre pressure, the tyre temperature is also monitored. “In places like the Yamuna Expressway there have been many cases of accidents. The road is made of pure concrete and this generates a lot of friction which leads to more punctures.
Vehicle handling will also be very bad under such circumstances and may result in more accidents. Monitoring the tyre temperature is also essential and the device also makes this possible,” adds Prabhu.
Traffic expert M N Sreehari said: “A technology for monitoring tyre pressure is definitely useful. However, while cases of accidents might be caused by issues related to tyre pressure, there is no way of knowing for sure as very little data is compiled on the same,” he says.