Road gators could soon be on the endangered list. And that’s a good thing.

They’re not animals, of course. They’re those bits of truck tires strewn across America’s highways. They’re often the tragic result of tires that weren’t operating at optimal air pressure, which is hard to maintain on a tractor trailer carrying various loads over hundreds or even thousands of miles through large temperature swings.

Two years ago, a California startup named Aperia Technologies began selling a solution to this problem: the hub-mounted Halo Tire Inflator. Similar to a self-winding watch, it uses a pendulum-type weight to power a pump as the wheel it’s attached to turns. Set to a specific pressure, the device is connected to the tire’s valve stem via a hose and automatically increases or reduces pressure as needed. One Halo can serve up to two tires.

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