If you’ve been intrigued by live tyre pressure-sensing tech and like lightweight TPU tubes, Tubolito’s new Tubo-Road SYNCD might be just what you’ve been waiting for.
An evolution of the brand’s smart P-SENS mountain bike inner tube, the Tubo-Road SYNCD features an integrated, battery-powered pressure sensor embedded within the tube.
This enables the transmission of real-time pressure and temperature data to your smartphone or a compatible Garmin Edge bike computer
Compatible with 23-35mm tyres, the Tubolito Tubo-Road SYNCD costs €39.95.
A smart inner tube
Where the P-SENS tube used an unpowered near field communication (NFC) chip to monitor your tyre pressures, the Tubo-Road SYNCD steps things up with a battery-powered chip.
This means that, instead of needing to stop, get off your bike and hold your phone next to the valve stem, the Tubo-Road SYNCD can actively transmit data while you're riding.
Tubolito makes its own app for iOS and Android smartphones, but if you have a compatible Garmin Edge bike computer, you can download a free app for it from Garmin’s Connect IQ store.
This way, you’ll be able to see the live data as you ride, directly on your head unit, without needing to pull out your phone.
You can also set minimum and maximum pressure thresholds, so the app can notify you should pressures fall or rise outside of those limits for whatever reason.
Tubolito says the Tubo-Road SYNCD will also send an alert in the case of a puncture or sudden pressure loss.
The downside of this approach is that the battery isn’t replaceable, because it’s sealed within the tube.
10,000km battery life
Tubolito says the battery in a Tubo-Road SYNCD tube will last up to 10,000km or two years, although this will vary depending on how you use it.
Once the battery dies, the tube will of course keep functioning as a standard inner tube, but you’ll need to replace the whole thing to get the pressure-monitoring tech back.
To avoid unnecessary e-waste, Tubolito has a replacement programme, where exhausted sensors can be cut out of a tube and returned to the brand for recycling into new tubes (once the battery has been replaced).
Of course, this means destroying the tube, but you’ll receive a 30 per cent discount code for a new Tubo-Road SYNCD tube, and a return envelope for the exhausted chip, for taking part in this scheme.
If you don’t mind a widget sitting outside your wheel, you could also consider SKS’s Airspy SV pressure sensor, which costs £109.99 / $144.99 / €99.99 for a set of two sensors.
These are available for tubed or tubeless setups, and use a replaceable coin cell battery.
There’s also the Quarq TyreWiz for tubeless setups and Zipp’s latest 303 SW wheelset, which features the same pressure-sensing tech built into the rim.
Tubolito Tubo-Road SYNCD setup
To set up a Tubo-Road SYNCD tube, you simply install it in your bike like any other tube, then spin the wheel to wake up the sensor.
From here, you simply select the sensor within the Tubolito SYNCD app, and pressure and temperature data begins transmitting.
Like other Tubolito tubes, the Tubo-Road SYNCD is made from TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane), which is much lighter than standard butyl and produces less rolling resistance.
