Tire Patrol TPMS

A person may not save any money but may find that the new system addresses some of the issues with the old systems that tend to be ignored by the companies.

Some systems offer excellent performance but don't offer user replaceable batteries. Others have other pluses but suffer from excessive response time when a monitor loses contact with a sensor. Some need a booster if the truck/trailer combination is pretty long, but only offer the booster antenna as an extra cost option.

I had TST pass thru senders on our 30' travel trailer. It is a good product and worked fine. I was not thrilled with the readout monitor which cycled each tire readout separately. It was also not easily read, by me, at a glance while driving down the road. This "new" system is a second iteration. They have apparently been making TPMS transmitters for at least 3 years in conjunction with their toad portable braking system. Their display pad is 7" and displays the numbers on all tires all the time. As far as saving money, I'm not sure I will be not be spending a bit more. I expect to have and use this product for quite awhile and, unless prohibitively more expensive, don't worry about spending a little bit more to get what I want. I haven't made up my mind yet and am looking at several systems

How much money are you expecting to save on a "new to the market" system over a tried and tested company like TST or Tire tracker? Both of these companies have many satisified customers over years of servicing the RV industry.

I'm not sure about other systems but the Tire Patrol factory said that the monitor displays a low battery reading. I will check re disconnect signal being displayed. If transmission stops I would expect a dead battery indication. Their second generation system won't be on the market until sometime in March. Thanks.

One thing to check on is the length of elapsed time between when the monitor loses contact with a sensor, and when the monitor notifies you of that loss of contact. Some systems can take an hour to alert you to a lost signal. Quicker is better.

We wont have the rig on the road until April so i'm checking out several TPMS systems before I make a commitment. The issue of possibly not being able to read the tire pressure while the tires were in a static (parked) state triggered a phone call by me to the factory. I was informed that the "sleep" (static) mode was not a total power off mode but only a mode where the rate of data transmission was significantly reduced, thus saving battery power. That is to say you are able to get tire status info while parked, even for an extended time. This seems to be a fairly standard feature for all TPMS. The main variance I've found in external mounted TPMS systems is the size and weight of the transmitting unit and the design layout of the display monitor. The displays seem to vary from seeing all tire readings simultaneously on a larger display to seeing only the info cycled through on one tire at a time on a smaller display. Some are "pass through", allowing air to be added or pressure manually measured without removing the transmitter. This latter feature doesn't seem to be all that important, being able to read the tire pressure on the display monitor. The transmitters are easily removed if air needs to be added. The only significant difference that appears to be developing is incorporating TPMS into an expandable RV monitoring system wherein addition features and info can be added to the monitor display as they are developed, i.e. toad battery info, engine and generator fuel flow rate info, etc. The whole concept of providing the RV driver with additional useful info underway is expanding and combining that info onto one screen seems to be advantageous.

The TPMS system won't be available until March, so I doubt you're going to find anyone with any experience with them.

I found this negative in their product description: "Tire Patrol sensors go into sleep mode unless pressure is detected and the tires are rotating." That means you won't get current readings until you're underway instead of before you leave. TST will also pre-assign sensors on request, and does read before leaving. Also: "After two years, we have an inexpensive battery replacement program through the factory." TST and other brand sensor batteries may only last a year or so, but they're user replaceable at less than a dollar each. RVi does have some unique features in the "Command Center" though.

On edit: I'll just add that I saw nothing in their advertising or technical specs that indicated the sensors use WiFi instead of the standard frequencies most TPMS use. The Command Center is WiFi capable for other communications though.