Wow, checking once every 5 minutes is not continuous.
I checked my tires at a rest stop. I put my hand on the tires and hubs to confirm that they did not feel too hot. I checked sidewalls inside and outside and all looked normal. I check as much of the tread as I could see and it looked normal. Tire pressure had been checked with a digital gauge an hour earlier when we started out and the tires were cold, so I just looked at the bulge of the tire and it looked normal. I did not check the pressure with a gauge.
One hour later it went pop. We could hear it in the truck with the windows up, a/c on, radio off.
If the pressure is only checked once every 5 minutes, then if the pressure drops at a random point in time, on the average, it will be two and a half minutes before it is reported. Worst case it will not be reported for 4 minutes and 59 seconds. Two and a half minutes can let a lot of air out of the tire.
From my experience, from the time an event occurs that gets your attention, and you comprehend what it is and you pull over to the side of the freeway in a safe manner, that will easily take 2 minutes.
So you start loosing air at a significant rate. You get an alarm 2.5 minutes after it drops below the minimum acceptable value. You are stopped 2 minutes after that. Is that soon enough to prevent a blow out?
Anything that samples less often than every 30 seconds is not a lot of warning, imo.
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