World’s First Connected Inner Tube – Tubo-MTB PSENS
Yep, that’s right, a connected innertube where you can read the air pressure on an app.
How does the Tubo-MTB PSENS work?
A standard-looking inner tube has an inbuilt NFC chip that detects the air pressure in the tube and transmits it to a proprietary iPhone app.
Everything works exactly like a normal Tubolito inner tube except that the pressure can be read electronically as well as by normal means with a gauge
The ‘chip’ looks like this
What Are Tubolito Tubes?
These unusual-looking orange tubes are super lights and are claimed to be super-strong. I’ve used some with good-to-mixed results. They really are lighter than anything else and smaller than anything else and fantastic as a super-compact spare. However, they are very expensive and require specialist patches.
Some versions are not for rim brakes and are clearly sold as such, these tend to be the high-performance ones.
As well as the road version of their tubes, Tobolito also makes trail/MTB versions and it is specifically that version that now comes with an NFC-chip option. However, at a £40/Eur40 approximate price tag, these are out of my price range.
Tubo-MTB PSENS – Pros
- Much smaller than a regular tube
- Lightweight
- Great rolling resistance
Tubo-MTB PSENS – Cons
- The new pressure feature requires a phone to be present and very close to the chip. Your Garmin won’t pick it up.
- Price
I can’t see the point of this innovation. With reservations, I do like the regular tubes and if they were £10 I would buy them exclusively. But they’re not, they’re £20
Tubo-MTB – Some thoughts
- If only someone could invent a way of managing this data – wait a minute
- Then if only there was a device on your wrist that you could use rather than a smartphone – perhaps an Apple Watch or high-end Garmin with NFC, admittedly I don’t think that Tubolito could access NFC via CIQ
- As in the comments below, I think the future of air pressure monitoring requires a decent broadcast range – ie not NFC
- I further think that something like TyreWiz is superior as the cost is not built into the price of every tube you buy. That said, TyreWiz is very expensive too and annoyingly so if it fell off and you were to lose it.
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It would be nice if this tech could be integrated in to a complete system where a TT bike setup could be optimised. But yes – a mobile phone app just to tell you the pressure that you could measure at home with a gauge feels a bit “so what” to me.
The read-by-phone aspect does make it less appealing, but perhaps it is the start of something.
I imagine real-time monitoring will show up earlier with tubeless tires where a smart stem has a greater chance of staying installed for years.
Ok so after taking out a mortage for a fenix with maps and pay, I’ll still bring my phone down to the basement or out to the garage pre ride to check the pressure and then bring it back up to the flat or inside the house? Seems plausible.
We need more batteries and circuits in stuff. Still waiting for connected / smart toiletpaper.
We are releasing an NFC valve extension pressure sensor next month. Unlike this, it’s cheaper, reusable, and usable with tubeless wheels. Check us out at http://www.roverdev.us!
Now our Kickstarter for an NFC valve extension sensor is published in pre-launch. You can visit here and sign up to be notified when it launches: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/roverdev/psicle-sensor
There is also SKS Airspy SV which is compatible with garmin. And cost much less then TyreWiz.
https://www.sks-germany.com/en/products/airspy-sv/
that one looks good ! thank you. i’d either forgotten about that or didn’t know it.