FOBO TIRE TPMS BLUETOOTH (EXTERNAL SENSOR)

In 2014, the Malaysian company FOBO announced what it claimed to be the world’s first-ever Bluetooth TPMS, after its crowdfunding scheme to raise development funds surpassed the original goal of $28,000 to reach $186,000. Impressively, the sensors are locked to the user’s registered cloud space, rendering them of no practical use to a thief, and up to 12 sensors can be registered to a single online account. FOBO has also thought about a situation in which a mobile telephone may be unavailable and provides an in-car unit (powered by two AA batteries) that flashes one of its four corner’s LEDS, along with an audible alarm, should it detect something amiss.

While we found that the mobile app software was well-designed, displaying both tyre air temperature and pressures, the sensors were excessively bulky – at 11 grammes, they were the heaviest tested. Unfortunately, another test sample had to be supplied after the original kit failed to work with our mobile phone after two hours of trying; even then, pairing still took 20 minutes to complete. On the move, we were concerned that the warnings displayed by the in-car unit did not correlate with the phone readings and some reactions to fast deflations were very sluggish, taking up to 40 seconds to register.

The high price also counts against it, especially when superior systems are available for less money.