JayCommand/BMPro - TPMS Safety

[TomC_AZ]

I wanted to share some important safety info about one of our experiences a month ago while on our trip.

We traveled a total of 10,000 miles through 17 states towing our Jay Feather Micro 166, single axle trailer. One of my worst fears was the potential for a flat tire or a total blowout. This was compounded in my mind since my wife who just recently learned how to tow had to drive while I worked in the passenger seat.

Since we have the BMPro/JayCommand system on our trailer it seemed obvious to use their TPMS solution and have a full integrated system.

Setting them up is very easy and we have "used" them for a number of months prior to our trip.

Let me setup the situation:
My wife was driving this day, we were traveling between Estes Park CO headed to Frisco CO. This route took us up to, through, and down the Eisenhower tunnel. The north side is a 6% grade up/down and the south side is a 7%. It is also LONG... We had completed this, went to get gas and then drove another 5 miles to the campground in Frisco (by the way Peak One, is a nice campground/area). At no time did we ever get any alert nor did we see any issue with the tires. As we sat in the entrance to the campground a person behind us let us know one of our tires was flat. We looked and sure enough it was totally flat. Then I looked and no alerts on my phone. Unlocked and opened the BMPro app and bam alert popped up.....

Thankfully it seems like the tire went flat right there at the campground, however this could have been soooo much worse as it was a valve stem issue, nothing wrong or in the tire and no rim damage. But my DW would possibly not handled things well if it had happened on the mountain/tunnel area and possibly would have caused a HUGE accident.

I reached out to BMPro on this, and have since made some suggestions for serious safety improvements. But they informed me that on a iPhone (which both of us have/use) the app must be running and open and the screen cannot be locked. Otherwise no alerts will be sent/shown. On an Android phone it will.

Moral of the story is if you are using this app with an iPhone and believe you are going to get alerts you are wrong and will not. You have to set your phones auto lock to off and to never close the screen while driving. (BTW the manual does not say anything about this requirement) Or another option is to use another TPMS solution (TST/TireMinder etc).

I still like the BMPro product and even TPMS however we are much more careful now with it and make sure at least one of our phones is open and not locked. Since doing this we have seen a couple alerts from our fridge temp and even tire temps (Wife needed to change the default settings on this, was not an issue).

[Shaun1]

I have since switched to a tire minder system just because I have an iPhone too and never got alerts.