Goodyear’s SightLine technology has the potential to change the way we monitor tire health.

Goodyear recently invited the North American media to their head offices in Akron, Ohio to test drive some of their newest tires, as well as experience a number of innovations and new technologies.

One of these technologies is Goodyear’s SightLine, which the company unveiled earlier this year at the 2024 CES (Consumer Electronics Show). SightLine employs a sensor that’s glued to the inner surface of a tire, and able to communicate in real time with a data receiver that’s plugged into the OBD II port. Goodyear says it can be used with any vehicle, from cars and SUVs to last-mile delivery vehicles to long-haul trucks.

Unlike a traditional valve-based TPMS sensor, in addition to measuring tire pressure, SightLine sensors can measure tire temperature and acceleration, all while collecting a host of other data. The receiver is equipped with an accelerometer, so it understands what the vehicle is doing at all times. Moreover, since it’s plugged into the OBD II port, it has access to vehicle data, which means it knows the vehicle’s speed, steering angle, etc.

Valuable data

After the sensor in each tire transmits data wirelessly to the receiver, that data can then be uploaded to Goodyear’s cloud service for analysis and feedback, or it can be processed onboard the vehicle and displayed on the dash (requires OEM integration) or on a standalone screen.

SightLine can crunch all the data and report key findings, including how much life is left in each tire, and the weight of the vehicle. SightLine estimates the load per tire and the total mass of the vehicle, which means it can estimate how much cargo is being loaded, making it ideal for a variety of fleet applications.

One of the other exciting application is vehicle safety. For instance, SightLine can sound an aquaplaning alert. The sensor can detect a loss of contact between the tire and the road, whenever one of the tires goes over a patch of water. It can then issue a warning to the driver that they need to slow down immediately.

Goodyear has partnered with a weather provider that supplies them with what one of Goodyear’s engineers called “hyper-local” weather information. Armed with this data, SightLine can estimate road conditions.

In other words, SightLine can tell when the road is dry, wet from rain, or covered in snow or ice. Then, taking into account the vehicle speed and tire wear data, SightLine can estimate the stopping distance. Not only is this information helpful for drivers, but it can also be integrated into the adaptive cruise control system to help the vehicle maintain a safe stopping distance from other vehicles on the road.

Three key markets

SightLine is already being employed by fleets in Europe and North America, and Goodyear hopes to roll this technology out to more fleets in the near future.

At the consumer level, before SightLine can be used to display tire data on the dashboard of new vehicles, the technology will have to be integrated into vehicles at the OEM level. According to Goodyear, that’s in the works, but not available just yet.

Finally, as autonomous vehicles take over our streets, SightLine will be able to provide these unmanned machines with critical tire data and safety information to help keep the rest of us safe on public roads.