Vehicle Tire Pressure Sensors Enable Silent Tracking - Slashdot

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Longtime Slashdot reader
linuxwrangler
writes:
Dark Reading
reports
that a team of researchers has determined that signals from tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMSs), required in U.S. cars since 2007, can be
used to track the presence, type, weight, and driving pattern of vehicles
. The researchers
report
(PDF) that the
TPMS data
, which includes unique sensor IDs, is sent in clear text without authentication and can be intercepted 40-50 meters from a vehicle using devices costing $100.
"Researchers have discovered that most TPMS sensors transmit a unique identifier in clear text that never changes during the lifetime of the tire," the researchers pointed out. "This unencrypted wireless communication makes the signals susceptible to eavesdropping and potential tracking by any third party in proximity to the car."
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Submission: Tire Pressure Sensors Enable Vehicle Tracking
Computer Scientists Caution Against Internet Age-Verification Mandates
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Vehicle Tire Pressure Sensors Enable Silent Tracking
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Vehicle Tire Pressure Sensors Enable Silent Tracking
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old news...
Score:
, Interesting)
by
DarkOx
( 621550 )
writes:
on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @04:06PM (
#66023078
Journal
This has been an know issues/concern going back to at least 2014. People were talking about it at security conferences back then.
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by
dgatwood
( 11270 )
writes:
This has been an know issues/concern going back to at least 2014. People were talking about it at security conferences back then.
Yeah, I was gonna say, no s**t, Sherlock. I thought this was common knowledge. That's how the car knows which tire is low. Otherwise, it would have to guess.
In an ideal world, it wouldn't work that way. You'd do a pairing handshake at the beginning, and the car and the TPMS would do an elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman key exchange or similar, and then they would use that symmetrical key for all future communication. But the extra crypto would mean more power consumption, both of which are problematic. An
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by
The-Ixian
( 168184 )
writes:
I think that there is another method than a wireless sensor.
For example, I believe that my wife's 2015 Jetta (low end model) uses torque somehow. In her car, once the low tire pressure alerts is tripped, you have to manually re-set the sensor even after filling the tire back up to the recommended level.
Re:old news...
Score:
, Informative)
by
red_dragon
( 1761 )
writes:
on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @04:47PM (
#66023216
Homepage
What you describe is called indirect TPMS. It works by measuring the differences in speed between wheels through the ABS wheel speed sensors, and triggers if it detects an outlier. It doesn't require an additional sensor inside each wheel, instead using existing sensors and some arithmetic, so it costs less, but cannot indicate the pressure for each individual wheel, plus it requires the reset procedure that you referenced when new tires are installed or after you've corrected whatever caused it to trigger. My 2004 BMW has that, and so did Mazdas into the current decade.
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by
alhaz
( 11039 )
writes:
My Audi has this indirect system too.
One downside for me is that while it will alert me to an abnormal leak, it won't (hasn't, in 4 years) alerted me to uniform low pressure across all four, such as during a cold snap in the fall.
But the culvert at the end of my driveway is basically a speed bump, and it *will feel wrong if the pressure is low.
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by
cayenne8
( 626475 )
writes:
I just let them break or run out of power and never replace them.....
Problem solved...they all do eventually
die
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by
bugs2squash
( 1132591 )
writes:
yeah, I was going to say this too - I have a permanent tire pressure alarm in my 2017, presumably the battery ran out, the tire pressure is fine
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by
PPH
( 736903 )
writes:
Some vehicles can sense a low tire by comparing the revolutions per mile of each. Measured with the anti-lock sensor (wired) and integrated over a long period of time. It's not very accurate and it doesn't respond quickly to a developing flat. But it works with no in-tire sensor.
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by
karmawarrior
( 311177 )
writes:
I think you're hiding the wrong information here. The concern is tracking, not third parties being able to find out if you have a flat. (How would they use that information? Run behind you and try to sell you a new tire? Not to mention if you have a severe enough flat it's pretty easy for someone to see it visually!) Your proposal, in addition to the issues you yourself raise, would add to the unique information being transmitted by each tire, not subtract.
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by
dgatwood
( 11270 )
writes:
I think you're hiding the wrong information here. The concern is tracking, not third parties being able to find out if you have a flat. (How would they use that information? Run behind you and try to sell you a new tire? Not to mention if you have a severe enough flat it's pretty easy for someone to see it visually!) Your proposal, in addition to the issues you yourself raise, would add to the unique information being transmitted by each tire, not subtract.
I think you're misunderstanding what we mean by tracking here. The signal from TPMS isn't a continuous signal that you could track, for example, with a directional antenna from a dirigible. It's a periodic burst that happens every 30 to 120 seconds. Even with a decent number of monitoring stations, you won't have an exact path for a vehicle, because they could make multiple turns between detection events, and you may not have a monitoring station close enough to detect every event. It would mostly be us
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by
Firethorn
( 177587 )
writes:
Keep in mind that there are 4 to 5 sensors transmitting. Once one knows all the sensors for a car, the average time between detectable events shortens considerably.
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by
dgatwood
( 11270 )
writes:
Keep in mind that there are 4 to 5 sensors transmitting. Once one knows all the sensors for a car, the average time between detectable events shortens considerably.
True, but the point is that it is still discrete bursts with likely random timing, not a continuous carrier.
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by
Firethorn
( 177587 )
writes:
When I looked it up, the standard is every 30-60 seconds. Per sensor. Assuming more or less random timing, that would mean that, on average, you get a pulse every 15 seconds or so.
Even in a car, that is fast enough for good discrete tracking, even if it wouldn't be suitable for guiding in a radiation tracking missile.
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dgatwood
( 11270 )
writes:
When I looked it up, the standard is every 30-60 seconds. Per sensor. Assuming more or less random timing, that would mean that, on average, you get a pulse every 15 seconds or so.
Even in a car, that is fast enough for good discrete tracking, even if it wouldn't be suitable for guiding in a radiation tracking missile.
Only if there aren't ten other cars nearby that are also chattering randomly in the same frequency band. You'd be as likely to track one as the next in the absence of any data specifically identifying a particular sensor as belonging to a specific car. That's why discrete bursts are critically different from a continuous carrier. With a continuous carrier, you can use a phased array that tracks the source of the signal precisely, and once you have locked it on a target, if it goes off center, it can inst
Still confusing tracking with target lock
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by
Firethorn
( 177587 )
writes:
You're missing the point, a continuous carrier with a phased array is good enough to hit something with a HARM missile. It's a target lock, not just tracking.
Tracking can be looser. Consider that part of the case against Abrego Garcia is that a license plate reader picked up the vehicle sometime a week earlier (news reports giving a specific number of days seem to have been redacted) in Houston, and that's part of the charges against him.
Think more "We know it was in the neighborhood" than GPS coordinates
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dgatwood
( 11270 )
writes:
You're missing the point, a continuous carrier with a phased array is good enough to hit something with a HARM missile. It's a target lock, not just tracking.
Tracking can be looser. Consider that part of the case against Abrego Garcia is that a license plate reader picked up the vehicle sometime a week earlier (news reports giving a specific number of days seem to have been redacted) in Houston, and that's part of the charges against him.
Think more "We know it was in the neighborhood" than GPS coordinates at any given second.
Just consider if all you have is sensors placed at traffic signals (so they have power). Even if they miss the vehicle occasionally, how much information could you gather on somebody with the only information being a hit at an intersection at a known time?
I'd argue that one could come very close to figuring out where they live, where they work, where they shop.
Of course. I'm not saying it can't be used. I'm saying that because there is no continuous carrier signal, if the data were properly encrypted, an outside observer would know only that some unknown vehicle was there, not that a specific vehicle was there, and that they would therefore have to rely on something else, such as license plates, to recognize the vehicle, because even if they could initially identify the specific vehicle in some way, they would not have a continuous signal to follow from place t
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by
bugs2squash
( 1132591 )
writes:
Does the spare have a sensor too ?
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by
Firethorn
( 177587 )
writes:
The spare for my Tacoma has a sensor. My Corolla didn't even come with a spare, so no sensor.
Thus 4-5 sensors per car. I'm pretty sure motorcycles are still exempt.
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by
MattCC
( 551250 )
writes:
Also noted by Bruce Schneier in 2008
...
[schneier.com]
Well
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by
wakeboarder
( 2695839 )
writes:
There is an obvious way to remove them if you don't want to be tracked. But I guess we need a TPMv2 with encryption
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by
fahrbot-bot
( 874524 )
writes:
There is an obvious way to remove them if you don't want to be tracked.
...
More obvious way, wrap your tires in tin foil.
:-)
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by
wakeboarder
( 2695839 )
writes:
I was thinking airless tires \_()_/
To what end?
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by
thrasher thetic
( 4566717 )
writes:
If you're within 40 or 50 meters of the vehicle, aren't you *already* tracking it?
Re:To what end?
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, Insightful)
by
anoncoward69
( 6496862 )
writes:
on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @04:12PM (
#66023094
I think the idea is that you can install sensors around town and track the movements of a vehicle, much like a flock camera. There's also been rumors for decades that car tires themselves have RFID tags embedded in the rubber and the magnetic loop sensors at traffic lights can read these RFID tags to track cars as well.
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Re: To what end?
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by
Viol8
( 599362 )
writes:
I think your tin foil hat needs polishing. Any RFID tags in tyres would be easy to find with a scanner unless you think a gubbermint is installing special mil spec ones for
... whatever.
Re: To what end?
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by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
Tires absolutely do typically contain RFID tags. So do lots of other things these days. Just the clothes you are wearing may constitute a tag cloud sufficient to identify you.
On the flip... No the TPMS doesn't tell what the weight of your vehicle is. Tire pressure can be set incorrectly.
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, Insightful)
by
dfghjk
( 711126 )
writes:
No, you are not. I'm within 50 meters of countless cars every day yet I'm not tracking any of them.
However, a better point is to what end? The information itself is worthless, only associating it with a traveling vehicle to track the vehicle could be, yet there are other ways to track vehicles. And is reading tire pressures from remarkably far away and efficient way to implement tracking in volume? Seems like a crappy way to do something that is otherwise not hard, not to mention that while there may be
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by
Valgrus Thunderaxe
( 8769977 )
writes:
I'm not tracking any of them.
That's what they want
you
to think.
Re: To what end?
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by
Viol8
( 599362 )
writes:
This. Wtf use is a tracker when you have to track the vehicle manually a few car lengths behind to stay in contact with the devices!
Re: To what end?
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by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
The usual theory is that there are sensors placed in the road or just at intersections. I know of no smoking gun but it's absolutely possible.
Interesting, but not much of a threat
Score:
, Insightful)
by
tphb
( 181551 )
writes:
It is an interesting paper and it is clever. But the threat of someone knowing my vehicle tire pressure (and thereby inferring weight) etc. is not something I'd worry about. After all, one could discretely check the tire pressure of my parked car without me knowing. And from the tread pattern, could tell a lot about driving habits. And if they wanted to track my vehicle around town, they can look at the license plate.
In other words, this can already be easily ascertained. But still cool paper. I don't think
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by
dfghjk
( 711126 )
writes:
"I don't think auto manufacturers will be moving to encrypted tire sensors anytime soon."
They are more likely to transition cars to clean coal.
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by
PPH
( 736903 )
writes:
Then they'll mandate taggants in the coal.
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by
Anonymous Coward
writes:
the TPMS data, which includes unique sensor IDs, is sent in clear text without authentication and can be intercepted 40-50 meters from a vehicle using devices costing $100
A mesh of sensors can track and collate the driving patterns of all cars in an area without obvious cameras.
Re:Interesting, but not much of a threat
Score:
, Interesting)
by
PleaseThink
( 8207110 )
writes:
on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @04:40PM (
#66023182
It's illegal to change your license plate. It's not illegal to scan someone's sensor ids, clone them on your vehicle, then drive by one of these 3rd party sensors while committing a crime (well the crime part is illegal). The point is someone can steal your 'car identify' by doing this. Today's that's not too useful. Maybe tomorrow it will be. Perhaps there's a push back against cameras and cities switch to tire tracking instead. It'll matter then. Or perhaps these ids are already being tracked into people's overall profiles. Similar to how people who take their phones onto roller coasters end up getting higher insurance rates because that movement data makes them look like bad drives, someone could clone your ids, speed past a few sensors, and now your rates are going up. It wouldn't be some criminal organization targeting you, it'd be some random kids thinking it's a cool/funny prank.
There's a bunch of other random 'pranks' you could as well, especially as cars are getting more automated. I doubt Waymo encrypted their tire ids. Clone theirs and give their car false alarms of flat tires. How will they react? You can mess with people on the road too. I bet you can get a lot of people to pull over if you feed their car false pressure readings. How will the car software react to readings coming in from multiple sensors with the same id?
The chance of any of that affecting you is small, but it's something the industry will have to deal with so they might as well get ahead of it and secure all their communication pathways sooner rather than later.
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by
bussdriver
( 620565 )
writes:
1st person caught at it will discover how creative their local prosecutor's office is. They always find some law and a judge to throw the book at you with a crazy high punishment. Unless you can claim affluentenza and can't handle punishment.
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by
AmiMoJo
( 196126 )
writes:
Wouldn't it be illegal to clone the sensor IDs with the intent of framing someone else for a crime?
Like it's not illegal to start using an alias, but it is illegal to do it for the purpose of identity theft and fraud.
Either way, cloning licence plates is popular in the UK. It's illegal, but it happens a lot. People often find out when they get a letter from the police about speeding in some place they have never been to, or a speculative invoice for parking someone they never parked.
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bugs2squash
( 1132591 )
writes:
What about foreign dignitaries cloning some random pressure sensor IDs so that they can't be used as target verification by drones.
Re:Interesting, but not much of a threat
Score:
, Insightful)
by
dgatwood
( 11270 )
writes:
on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @04:46PM (
#66023210
Homepage
Journal
It is an interesting paper and it is clever. But the threat of someone knowing my vehicle tire pressure (and thereby inferring weight) etc. is not something I'd worry about. After all, one could discretely check the tire pressure of my parked car without me knowing. And from the tread pattern, could tell a lot about driving habits. And if they wanted to track my vehicle around town, they can look at the license plate.
That's kind of true, but not entirely. You're assuming authorized government surveillance. For unauthorized surveillance, there are potentially significant differences.
Assuming the people doing the tracking don't have access to DOT cameras, they would need to add a bunch of cameras in various places, and that means putting them in places where it would be obvious that something had been added. After all, if you can't see the camera, it can't see your license plate. So the risk of discovery is high, and once one is discovered, any others would be quickly discovered, and the illicit surveillance would be gone.
By contrast, an antenna could be located anywhere within several feet of the road, the device could be entirely hidden inside of something that is supposed to be there. You could make crude antennas out of guy wires on utility poles, sensor loops at traffic lights, a single unused telephone wire in a large bundle, or even the shield on coax if you raise the ground resistance a bit. And the electronics could be concealed in tiny little boxes mounted on the sides of utility poles, in the traffic light switching boxes, or even in a fake black splice case on a telephone line. As long as there is voltage and proximity, you're done. Something like that could potentially get installed underneath one of those covers where the signal wires for traffic control pass, and no one would notice until they did road construction and had to reinstall the signal wires, which could be years or even decades later.
More importantly, you would not be limited to one installation location, and the installation would not be instantly obvious to someone walking or driving by. So discovering one doesn't necessarily mean that others, concealed differently, would be discovered.
So yes, in theory, they're similar, but in practice, not necessarily.
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thegarbz
( 1787294 )
writes:
By contrast, an antenna could be located anywhere within several feet of the road
Just because the speed camera your local government puts up is in a massive box doesn't mean cameras in general need to be. There's no finite difference here. If someone installed a camera on the side of a street and made an attempt to hide it you won't find it.
Like seriously hidden cameras have been a thing back in the days when we still used words like "Pentium" and through the world would end at midnight 1999, and they've only gotten smaller since then.
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dgatwood
( 11270 )
writes:
By contrast, an antenna could be located anywhere within several feet of the road
Just because the speed camera your local government puts up is in a massive box doesn't mean cameras in general need to be. There's no finite difference here. If someone installed a camera on the side of a street and made an attempt to hide it you won't find it.
You don't just need a camera. You also need electricity, a connection to the Internet, and hardware for compressing the video and sending it over the Internet. There are very limited places that have both a power supply *and* a clear view of the street, and if you go digging up the ground to run wires between somewhere that has power and somewhere that has a view of the street, there's a good chance that someone will notice you digging up and redoing the sidewalk or whatever.
And if you aren't within singl
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Bu11etmagnet
( 1071376 )
writes:
> Assuming the people doing the tracking don't have access to DOT cameras,
I sincerely hope nobody has access to cameras with Damage Over Time.
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by
The-Ixian
( 168184 )
writes:
Tell this to the people who put those shields on their license plates to foil flock cameras.
It's like browser fingerprinting. Your car is emitting all kinds of signals, taken together, it can form a fingerprint. That fingerprint allows tracking. The only remaining thing is to tie the fingerprint to a person, which is easy enough in the case of a car due to a perfectly visible (by law) license plate.
But, really, the best method of tracking you is already in your pocket.
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by
sound+vision
( 884283 )
writes:
I don't think anyone's concerned about the PSI of their tires being tracked, it's the unique vehicle ID in combination with time and location data that a network of receivers could tabulate.
But yeah, it is mostly a moot point when they are already tracking you by license plate. (Which they are, for anyone who's been asleep for 10 years). I assume the concern for TPMS RFID originated in the before-times.
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by
geekmux
( 1040042 )
writes:
It is an interesting paper and it is clever. But the threat of someone knowing my vehicle tire pressure (and thereby inferring weight) etc. is not something I'd worry about. After all, one could discretely check the tire pressure of my parked car without me knowing. And from the tread pattern, could tell a lot about driving habits. And if they wanted to track my vehicle around town, they can look at the license plate.
The technology is interesting because it's yet another way a vehicle can be fingerprinted and more importantly
electronically tracked.
without the need for a license plate or even color of the car. Fingerprinting will eventually be able to identify down to the make/model based on weight and tire pressure signatures.
If the tracking hardware is cheap, then governments won't mind purchasing in bulk. Call it Flock "upgrades".
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by
tlhIngan
( 30335 )
writes:
I don't think auto manufacturers will be moving to encrypted tire sensors anytime soon.
Why not? They can use them to lock the TPMS units to the car. Your Ford requires Ford TPMS sensors. Instead of picking up 4 TPMS sensors that work in any car for like $50 each, Ford will sell you 4 Ford ones for $500 each.
And if you swap your tires between winter and all-seasons hey, Ford can make sure your new set of tires are synced to the vehicle for $100 every time you switch.
Seems like a perfect way to make you pay m
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bugs2squash
( 1132591 )
writes:
I think they already do that, just without the encryption part
Not me!
Score:
by
Waffle Iron
( 339739 )
writes:
I've got the cheap version that uses the anti-lock brake optical sensors to try to guess if the tire is flat. No RF sensors required.
I get a false positive and have to recalibrate a couple of times per year, but that's a small price to pay to make sure nobody is tracking me!
(Now I just have to figure out how to work around having those big high-contrast unique ID numbers screwed onto my front and rear bumpers.)
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Pascoea
( 968200 )
writes:
Now I just have to figure out how to work around having those big high-contrast unique ID numbers screwed onto my front and rear bumpers.
Check out some Sovereign Citizen content, they've got all sorts of ways to deal with those. None have worked so far, but it's worth the entertainment.
Ever feel "safety" is a Trojan Horse?
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by
TigerPlish
( 174064 )
writes:
on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @04:21PM (
#66023118
Ever feel "safety" is a Trojan Horse, used by governments to curtail your rights, track you, and / or just make your life a bit more complicated?
"it's for your own good.'
That's what my "mother" used to say before she'd make with the belt and try to "correct" me.
Governments' the same way. "It's for your own good" while over-complicating your car and simultaneously draining your wallet. And now, with added privacy loss for your embiggenment!
We need a Restoration. A movement to lead us back to Common Sense. This rulebook is getting impossible. Pretty soon we'll be forced into self-driving pods and forced to wear body airbags.
Oh, and just today, I found I can't buy corded blinds anymore. Now the bedroom blinds won't be like the blinds in the rest of the house. Yet more government intrusion into my space. Yay, Big Gov't! Protect me from myself! Wlaaaaaaah! I NEED GOVERNMENT TO KEEP ME SAFE, WAAAAH!
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by
CubicleZombie
( 2590497 )
writes:
Your next car will have a remote kill switch, and if your passenger has alcohol on their breath, it will refuse to start.
We are tracked everywhere now
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by
JimBowen
( 885772 )
writes:
It has become ubiquitous.
Your phone can be triangulated to precise location without GPS. Your licence plate can be tracked by ALPR cameras. Your face can be tracked by face-recognition.. Everything you do online is tracked.
If you have a new car then it is "connected" to the cloud (and, of course, tracked) via 5G, probably monitors your in-car conversations and probably indeed could be remotely disabled or even remotely crashed these days, if you were important enough to bother.
So TPMS sensors being RF-ident
Lifetime of the tire, or lifetime of the sensor?
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by
innocent_white_lamb
( 151825 )
writes:
The article says that the id number never changes during the lifetime of the tire.
Do they mean the tire sensor or the actual tire? I can't see how the tire, the rubber-and-metal thing that wraps around the rim, would have a readable id number.
But I don't know how these sensors work so maybe the tires do have some kind of a unique serial number that's involved here.
Or not?
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by
PPH
( 736903 )
writes:
It's the sensor that has the unique ID. Tires might have a serial number as well. But they aren't replaced along with their TPS. So unless your tire has some sort of inventory control chip in it*, it's not readale as you drive by.
*The presence of such inventory tracking RFID makes the whole TPMS snooping a moot point. They can track you based upon the chip in your Fruit of the Looms.
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BranMan
( 29917 )
writes:
Lifetime of the sensor. The sensor can be embedded in any number of tires (mine are swapped back and forth from summer to winter tires twice a year).
Remember, they have a lifespan though - about 10 years, give or take. Then you need a new set of sensors as the batteries are not (apparently) replaceable.
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drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
It is possible to replace batteries in a minority of sensors, but these days it's probably just smarter to buy clones from China. They are reputedly good now.
Re: Lifetime of the tire, or lifetime of the senso
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by
kenh
( 9056 )
writes:
TPM is tied to the car, not the tire.
They have their own batteries, with estimated life of 10 years, longer than a set of tires.
They are wireless because it's the only way to get the pressure reading from the tire rim to the on-board computer, since, you know,
"the wheels on the car go round and round, round and round, round and round..."
Solutions anyone?
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by
davidwr
( 791652 )
writes:
Dial down the power to shorten the sniffing range?
Randomize the "ID" code every time the car starts or every time the wheel is idle for 10 minutes?
Enable some simple encryption?
Each of these has some costs.
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by
DeanonymizedCoward
( 7230266 )
writes:
Not a lot of great solutions. Reducing the power a lot is probably the best one. Then the car needs a receiver near each wheel to get the data. Some already have this, that's how they magically figure out which tire ended up where when you do a rotation. Randomizing the IDs could work in this scenario, too, but then the car has to relearn the IDs every time they rotate, which could be error prone.
Anything involving fancy crypto is going to take a bite out of the sensor battery life, and require them to
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stabiesoft
( 733417 )
writes:
I think I have multiple antennas. I put a bundle of shingles in the back of mine and suddenly the left back tire came up not reading. At first a bit of panic as the car assumes it is flat. It was fine. Get home, take shingles out, car sees left back again. Who knew shingles were a good rf signal blocker. Another reason I think I have multiple is the first set of tpms laster 12 years and were still good. So they were picking up a pretty weak signal by that point. I figured I'd replace with the latest tire se
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drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
It would be weird if the shingles in the cargo area affected per-wheel TPMS, because the sensors are usually located in the wheel house. You can probably find the service manual for your car without too much effort... I'd look for it myself if I knew what it was.
Re:
Score:
by
stabiesoft
( 733417 )
writes:
Might be weird, but only explanation is some sort of shielding effect from the shingles. Problem was only present when the bundle was transported. The car is a wagon, and bundle was near the left rear tire area.
Re: Solutions anyone?
Score:
by
kenh
( 9056 )
writes:
You know, license plate readers are a thing.
RFID toll tags are a thing.
Personal tracking devices (cellphones) are a thing.
Is this in any way a greater risk than any of the above? This isn't a Hollywood movie where the government tracks TPM serial numbers, ties them to a VIN, which is then tied to the owner's identity... it's just a unique number, period.
The jokes on you
Score:
by
Lando242
( 1322757 )
writes:
on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @04:37PM (
#66023168
The batteries ran out on my tire pressure sensors years ago. I have to check the pressure manually, as nature intended.
Share
Re:
Score:
by
slipped_bit
( 2842229 )
writes:
I was going to say the same thing. Mine have gotten so weak that once the temperature drops below about 50 F (10 C) they stop being read, and that cutoff temperature has been rising for the last few years. I told my dealer, who has otherwise provided excellent service, that the batteries in them were getting weak and I'd like to have them serviced (I assume they replace the whole sensor, and not just the batteries), and I intentionally took it to them on a cold day to be sure the TPMS light was on. But a
Come on, guys...
Score:
by
Anonymous Coward
writes:
Just roll with it!
Re:
Score:
by
noshellswill
( 598066 )
writes:
Yep. Just roll a fragmentation grenade into the same room as a pack of  privacy-invading data-snatchers and the codrboiz who pimp their ride. Ohhh that's gonna be a real mess !
Required?
Score:
by
flibbidyfloo
( 451053 )
writes:
on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @05:02PM (
#66023256
The article states these are required, but some cars (like mine) only use "indirect" sensing, meaning there are no actual sensors in the tire. The onboard computer just uses speed and rotation data from the ABS system to detect pressure changes.

So before you worry about this, find out if your car actually has them.
Share
BTDT
Score:
, Interesting)
by
Baron_Yam
( 643147 )
writes:
on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @05:28PM (
#66023308
My Home Assistant has an RTL-433 radio and logs every tire that passes within range while transmitting. I can match that to camera feeds and get the schedules of anyone who uses my residential street.
Mainly I use it to notify me when one of the family cars arrives home, but the other uses are trivial and I've played around with them.
Share
Re:
Score:
by
AmiMoJo
( 196126 )
writes:
What kind of antenna do you use for that?
Re:
Score:
by
914
( 88354 )
writes:
Start reading here:
[hackaday.com]
Re:BTDT
Score:
, Informative)
by
Baron_Yam
( 643147 )
writes:
on Thursday March 05, 2026 @06:37PM (
#66025172
I have a USB STL dongle for my computer. Connected to that is a few feet of wire and I think the antenna itself is a few inches in height.
Parent
Share
Re:
Score:
by
Baron_Yam
( 643147 )
writes:
*SDR - software defined radio.
Re:
Score:
by
AmiMoJo
( 196126 )
writes:
Thanks. Surprising it gets such good reception of relatively weak signals.
Re:
Score:
by
Baron_Yam
( 643147 )
writes:
There are a surprising number of open 433MHz devices in my area. It's not just TPS, there are some home security open/close sensors, weather stations, soil moisture sensors, etc. I can't tell which direction they're coming from or from how far, but the sheer quantity of devices implies they're distributed around more than a handful of neighboring properties.
There are probably other signals I can't decode because they're not in the free library used to process them.
Re:
Score:
by
AmiMoJo
( 196126 )
writes:
I was actually working on some 868MHz sensors, and wondering if I should bother encrypting them. It's a bit of a pain to do, and the data isn't all that interesting to anyone else, so I was inclined not to bother. My weather station doesn't, so people nearby know if it's raining...
It's a case of it it was simple to do I would, but it's not so I'll probably just live with people being able to know what the temperature and humidity is in some unknown part of my house.
Re:
Score:
by
Baron_Yam
( 643147 )
writes:
Zigbee is short range and encrypted. There are all kinds of sensors available, and setup involves pushing a button while the hub is looking for new devices trying to join the network.
Re:
Score:
by
AmiMoJo
( 196126 )
writes:
Yeah, it's a hobby thing, ultra low power. Going for 5 years on an AA cell. It's been years since I looked, but back then there weren't any good ZigBee modules that fit my profile. I should probably have another look.
I'm using CC1101 at the moment.
Re:
Score:
by
Baron_Yam
( 643147 )
writes:
I get everything direct from China via AliExpress. I've had issues with compatibility with Home Assistant but not many, and with a bit of effort involving a lot of Google searches I got them sorted.
Re:
Score:
by
AmiMoJo
( 196126 )
writes:
That's where I get the CC1101 modules from too. There is a UK company that makes them, but they want silly money. Shame, as they are compact and generally decent.
For pre built stuff I tend to go AliExpress, or lately I've had a few things off eBay where you can just replace the firmware with ESPHome or Tasmota. Got 8 smart switches for £5 delivered that way, and it only took about a minute to flash each of them.
Re:
Score:
by
q4Fry
( 1322209 )
writes:
That's pretty neat. You've induced me at least to go read TFA and the underlying study. They were measuring cars in a workplace parking lot and admit that it would be trickier to get results on a roadway. I'd be interested to know the 95/50/5% splits for identifying a car in any given time period and the corresponding spacing along a roadway to guarantee capture based on a certain travel speed.
But the use as tested in the study could already be worthwhile. Drop a sensor in the trees near the front of a targ
Re:
Score:
by
Baron_Yam
( 643147 )
writes:
I forget how often TPS systems fire, but it's not frequent enough to be sure of picking them up unless your sensor is in the car or the car parks nearby. I believe they trigger based on sudden pressure changes and motion, but they could be straight timed devices.
You really don't need real time tire pressure readings. If your tires are losing air fast enough that a few minutes matters, you're probably already noticing your car behaving oddly.
Ha! Good luck tracking me.
Score:
by
swillden
( 191260 )
writes:
My TPMS sensors are broken!. My truck (2012) complains every time I drive it.
Re:
Score:
by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
Same with my '08 versa. It doesn't have ABS! It's not standard anyway, and I don't have it. I don't tailgate, so not a huge problem, but it's still weird. So they couldn't cheap out on the TPMS by faking it with wheel sensors, as it doesn't have them.
Most TPMS also run IPv4
Score:
by
sinkskinkshrieks
( 6952954 )
writes:
They're basically free vulnerabilities to take over a car.
Amazing
Score:
by
50000BTU_barbecue
( 588132 )
writes:
So if you already know the position and presumably direction and speed of a vehicle, you can track it in a wildly complex and abstruse way?
Amazing.
Damn!
Score:
by
nospam007
( 722110 )
writes:
That means I have to put up new tires for every of my crimes.
ICE
Score:
by
Tokolosh
( 1256448 )
writes:
Please add TPMS to the People's face-recognition and license plate databases and upgrade the app accordingly.
Making mountain of a molehill
Score:
by
PIC16F628
( 1815754 )
writes:
A car is already trackable though its license plate. So what is this 'alarm' of being trackable via tyre sensors. The only difference being that license plate tracking requires line of sight. Seems like shouting hoarse for the sake of attention.
Fascinating
Score:
by
kenh
( 9056 )
writes:
Can I correlate the unique clear text string to a particular car when two cars are parked next to each other?
Can I 'read' a passing car and know which passing car it is from?
Or do I have to go out, find the car, specifically read just one sensor at a time, then I can correlate the string to the car, then I have to deploy an array of sensors to detect and track the car...
Seems like a lot of work, something we can already do by license plate readers...
unique identifier in clear text
Score:
by
kenh
( 9056 )
writes:
Wouldn't the identifiers be just as unique if they were encrypted?
What's the difference?
It's not like the clear text is "1998 Ford F-150 Pickup, Red w/ accent owned by Ralph Lauren", it's a number and letter string that is unique, but random.
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