New app developed for Bridgestone reads tyre pressures

Pocket App, the UK’s largest independent app developer, has announced that a new vehicle tyre pressure monitoring system for smartphones is now available for download. The new app, which has been designed for Bridgestone Europe, captures pressure readings from Bridgestone’s TPMS sensors using a Bluetooth Transceiver.

Transmitters attached to the valves of each tyre send data to the Bridgestone Capture Pack (BCP), which is then received via the smartphone, either Android or a Windows Phone 8 app. The Android and Windows Phone 8 app receive the Blue Tooth signal from the BCP which displays the number of tyres that are under minimum air pressure, indicating which tyres need to be serviced.

The screen of the device shows the number of data sets collected, once all the required data sets have been collected from multiple vehicles, the data is then uploaded. Once the device is within range of either a mobile or Wifi signal, this is then transmitted to the Bridgestone Siebel mainframe system.

This means that no more manual tyre pressure readings are required. Before Bridgestone had this tyre pressure monitoring system in place, drivers always had to monitor their tyre pressure with manual gauges. That meant kneeling down to each tyre, taking off the valve stem cap, and inserting the tyre pressure gauge. With this new monitoring systems, this procedure is no longer necessary and saves a huge amount of time and effort. Additionally it also increases the casing value as commercial tyres are commonly re-treaded one or more times. Running at the optimal pressure increases the likelihood that the casing is fit to be re-treaded. This in turn means that the fleet can get more value out of its tyres.

Paul Swaddle, CEO of Pocket App comments: “Bridgestone chose to work with us because we demonstrated that we have years of experience of working with third party solutions and the ability to integrate various other products such as Bluetooth, wearables and ibeacons in order to create a mobile solution that met Bridgestone’s requirements.”

The new Bridgestone app is available to download immediately. However, it should be noted that it only functions in combination with the Bridgestone Capture Pack.