There are a couple of must-haves for your road trips. My experience says that the most important of all is a good tyre inflator. So for the last couple of days, I have been testing the potential of the iGrid Portable Electric Battery Powered Digital Tyre Inflator. Well, the name is quite long, but read on to see if it’s a considerable product for the next road trip or not.
Aesthetics
The tyre inflator seems to be an intelligently-designed product. It feels like a batton with its cuboidal shape. However, it is on a slightly longer side. Interestingly, it is slim, and hence, it is easy to carry around. The device features a tiny 7-segment LCD to give you all the information that you need. Also, it has a USB port to use as a power bank, while there’s an old-school type-b charging port. For inflation duties, a cable comes along with the inflator, and it can be screwed on one of its ends. To ensure that it doesn’t fall out on the practicality aspect, iGrid has also added a small flashlight here. On the whole, the design feels nice, and the product feels chunky.
On paper
The iGrid’s tyre inflator is rated to operate at 12.6 Volts and 70 watts. It can inflate to a maximum pressure of 150 PSI. The battery pack here is a 2,200 mAh unit, and the inflator is capable of showing the pressure in four units – PSI, bar, kPa, and kg/cm².
Real-time performance
During our use and test conditions, the tyre inflator worked rather seamlessly. However, on bigger cars or tyres that require increased air pressure, the job take a little longer than usual. Nevertheless, it is designed for unprecedented situations, and it excels in fulfilling its purpose. Also, top-ups do not take a lot of time. For those looking for a machine to inflate tyres of their bicycles and motorcycles, this one does the job rather quickly.
Talking about it as a power bank, it is a complimentary purpose that the inflator manages to serve. But since a common battery serves both – the pump and power-receiving device, the decision should be made strategically. After all, 2,200 mAh is not too much to play around with. We believe a bigger battery would have made it more usable.
Worth buying?
iGrid is selling it for Rs. 3,999. However, they keep offering it at Rs. 2,899 from time to time during their limited-time sale. If bought at the latter price, it makes a lot of sense. This battery-powered tyre inflator can be a saviour when civilization is a distant sight. The machine has the potential to keep your tyres inflated and your mobile phone juiced up, and that’s more than anything you need during an emergency.
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