Yes, it's loud and you'll probably only use it occasionally but when you need it, odds are you'll really need it. This compact little number will save your rims if you discover you've got a slow puncture once your tyre's already flat... plus you can use it to keep all of your balls in order.
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Ball skills
Every once in a while, we come across a completely unexpected piece of tech — something that we didn’t realise could prove to be a useful part of our lives until we saw the blasted thing. The Xiaomi Mi Portable Electric Air Compressor (we won’t be referring to it by its full title throughout, don’t worry) is one of these.
This little air compressor isn’t an everyday essential, unless you’re a cyclist or you really go hard on the football field, but it’s something you should consider purchasing and leaving in your car — you know, in case of emergencies.
Brick joke
Xiaomi’s little invention is the size of a fair-sized power brick — which makes sense because that’s mostly what it is. It’s a rectangular-shaped block with circular holes along its sides (for grip in the pouring rain while on the 4×4 trail, we assume). In the centre is an LCD display — like an oversized calculator — and a control wheel that looks (but doesn’t handle) like the world’s largest iPod.
It doesn’t get a lot more complicated than that. There’s a single micro-USB charge port at its base and it turns on and off when you remove or reinsert the attachment that screws onto your tyres. Control is simple enough as well — clicking ‘left’ on the control turns on an LED light (in case you need to use it in the dark), clicking ‘right’ takes you through various profiles. There are options for freestyle (and then it’s all on you) as well as for scooters/motorcycles, regular cars and then sporting equipment. Holding down the ‘right’ swaps the unit of measurement between psi and Bar, so you can use your favourite.
Under pressure
See, it might manage to inflate five tyres to about 2.5 bar (we only checked and refilled our tyres for this review) on a charge but it takes some time to get to that point. It’ll inflate a standard car tyre in about six minutes, which is about right — it takes a few minutes just to top up the pressure on mostly-inflated tyres. You’re unlikely to need the automatic cut out if you’re paying attention because your desired pressure will take some time to loom into view. You’re more likely to turn it off once you hit your target, though the cutout will take place… once it gets all the way there.
That’s a lot of balls
Coming back to leaving this thing unattended, though — Xiaomi’s little compressor might be small enough to tuck into a glove box or that little receptacle by the driver’s side door but it’s capable of inflating up to 150 psi — that’s a little over 10 Bar. You don’t want to press the button to start it up and wander off to make coffee only to discover mid-sip that you left it on ‘freestyle’ without noting the settings and some joker was trying to see how high it could go. That’s one way to severely rupture one of your balls. Or a tyre, if you’re very unlucky. Still, as a piece of emergency equipment, it’s very worth having on hand.