Role: Developer & End-User Researcher
Status: In Development
Type: Assistive IoT Hardware + Native iOS App
Project Motivation
As someone who spent many years as a manual wheelchair user, I was regularly faced with the challenge of maintaining optimal tire pressure — a task that typically involves air loss during checks, resulting in frequent and inefficient refills. Existing Bluetooth tire pressure solutions for bikes and cars often require proprietary sensors and expensive subscription-based apps, making them inaccessible for many users.
This project was born out of a desire to create an affordable, accessible alternative that integrates with off-the-shelf BLE tire pressure sensors and delivers real-time pressure data directly to a custom iOS app and Apple Watch.
Development Journey:
User Centered Design
- Anchored in firsthand experience of accessibility gaps and daily friction points
- Designed for people who need frequent tire monitoring without recurring costs or tech barriers
BLE Sensor Integration
- Researched Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) sensor protocols from bike/car pressure caps
- Reverse-engineering proprietary data formats to enable open interoperability
- Investigating compatibility with GATT services for real-time pressure readings
App & WatchOS Development
- Learning Swift and Xcode for native iOS development
- Building a minimalist UI to show real-time PSI readings, sensor status, and battery life
- Future implementation: Apple Watch support for quick-glance pressure checks on the go
Skills Demonstrated
- Applied human-centered design with a focus on accessibility and autonomy
- IoT integration using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication protocols
- Native iOS development with Swift & Xcode
- Reverse-engineering and data decoding of proprietary sensor outputs
- Long-term project planning with staged development goals
