Phillips Connect moves trailer sensor alerts into the yard

How fleets catch light and tire defects now

Federal rules require a driver to be satisfied that a truck’s lighting devices and tires are in good working order before driving. Every required lamp must be capable of being operated at all times.

Fleets “rely heavily today on a group of people in the yard to detect issues with a trailer’s lights,” Wallin said. Phillips Connect sensors already reported tire and light health data before Insights.

“Knowing that there’s something unusual on a circuit was the first step. With Insights, we can tell a fleet which circuit has the problem, what’s likely causing it, and what the technician should check,” he said.

Lights Insights names the faulty circuit

Phillips Connect Insights now names the faulty circuit, whether taillights, running lights, or marker lights, and separates partial faults from full ones, according to the company. It suggests a likely cause, such as a burned-out bulb or water in the lamp, and confirms when the fault clears.

Some faults come and go. Wallin described a situation where “a lamp might have a loose wire or water in a bulb, so it doesn’t work when you pick up the trailer in the morning, but as the day heats up the water evaporates and the light works again. Insights catches that pattern, so the technician knows there’s a real problem even when the light looks fine.”

Tire Insights looks for slow leaks

On tires, Insights flags slow leaks and shows which tire is losing air and how fast, even when pressure reads normal or the trailer runs an automatic tire inflation system (ATIS). It also flags ATIS malfunctions, pressure imbalance between paired tires, and miles driven on underinflated tires.

Wallin estimated that “maybe half” of trailers in the market are starting to come with ATIS, and that the systems give some fleets false confidence.

“Fleets running ATIS have made a smart investment in keeping their tires inflated. Insights shows them what that system is compensating for, so a slow leak gets fixed in the shop instead of growing into something worse – like a blowout – is avoided down the road,” he said. 

Insights sends issues to fleet, safety, and maintenance teams in the Connect1 platform, urgent tire alerts to drivers through Phillips Connect’s DriverAssist, and diagnostics to technicians through the TechAssist app. It can also open service tickets in a fleet’s maintenance system.

TrailerSignal puts status on the trailer

TrailerSignal gives hostlers, dock crews, technicians, and drivers the same ready-or-not answer with no login or phone, according to the company.

“There are a lot of people in the yard who aren’t looking at a computer or a device, or this information isn’t available in a hostler system, or to your yard check person yet,” Wallin said.

The company rates the light as readable from 50 feet. A solar panel charges a built-in battery, so it works when the trailer is unplugged. It stays lit while the trailer is parked and shuts off once it moves. Installation takes as little as five minutes with no wiring.

Fleets choose which door, tire, light, and liftgate signals turn the light amber. One customer uses it at the dock, where amber tells a driver the trailer doors are still open.

“It can be a very dangerous, high-risk situation if that trailer is pulled away [while] the doors open,” Wallin said.

But the light only knows what the trailer’s sensors know. A fleet running any smart trailer sensor, including liftgate battery, tire, brakes, or more gets a red or amber signal on the nose of the trailer, Wallin said.

Neither release lists pricing, but the TrailerSignal and Insights are available now.

Phillips Connect adds to its trailer platform

The launches follow Phillips Connect’s March expansion into richer brake and liftgate data. The Irvine, California-based company named Wallin president and general manager in May. It plans to extend Insights to cargo activity during loading, unloading, and transit.

Wallin said the two products meet in the shop.

“Our mechanic finds the amber tag, pulls up our app, looks at the health of that trailer, and can find a slow leak,” he said. “Never could have had access to that kind of trailer data before.”

Why it matters: Tires and lights drove nearly a third of vehicle out-of-service violations in this year’s Roadcheck. Phillips Connect is putting its sensor data in front of yard crews, drivers, and technicians to catch those defects before an inspector does. Pricing has not been disclosed.