ANT + is a wireless data transfer protocol. It operates at a frequency of 2.4 GHz (like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) and is characterized by low power consumption, which is why it is used in sports and medical equipment, such as online calorie counters and cadence, as well as smart home systems.
Standardization of communication protocols means that the devices supporting them can communicate with each other without additional settings. A classic example of this is a heart rate monitor. The sensor is able to communicate with all Garmin sports watches that support this protocol, as well as with the Health application of the Samsung S smartphone. The ANT + device can be used with any similar device.
The protocol is being developed by the ANT Alliance open source group, and ANT Wireless is a division of Dynastream, owned by Garmin.
Convenience for the manufacturer
The ANT + Consortium holds developer conferences every year to meet with product manufacturers and programmers. Discussions take place here, and product managers request new profiles for upcoming features. In addition, this is the place where startups present new projects and profiles in the hope that manufacturers will license them, or simply want to produce things on their own.
Since June 2012, the ANT + technology development team has been led by Sebastian Barnovsky, who is creating profiles, a communication language for a certain type of information.
Thus, heart rate data has its own profile, as well as power, speed, step frequency, etc. This allows you to work with devices of various brands, which is a boon for everyone. Closed systems, such as the patented Polar language, simply have no future prospects for the development of ANT + technology.
Integration Efficiency
So, what happens if someone wants to send new information that is not in their current profiles? According to Barnowski, this can be done in two ways. The first and fastest option is to create your own profile, necessary for the rapid launch of the product on the market or in order to hide something from other devices. This can be done at any time at the manufacturer level, which greatly speeds up the development cycle.
The second option is to request a new open ANT + profile. This is necessary, say, if Speedplay wants to convey the pressure of the soles or cadence. To do this, you need a computer company that will receive this data and, upon request, provide it to various electronics for reading and display. In this case, Speedplay representatives will contact ANT Plus and tell them what they need.
Coach
Wahoo Fitness is a brand that advertises Bluetooth connectivity and launches iPhone-centric devices. But this company, having first created its profile for the Kickr trainer, is working with ANT + to create a standardized trainer profile. This will provide an opportunity to sell their various types and work with different online training programs. Existing Kickr trainers have been updated after the final public release, but the user will also have to update their computer or mobile device.
For a profile to be valued, programs are needed that can read its data. As a result of the collaboration between Wahoo and Kinomap, the videos of the latter are fully integrated with Kickr (and, ultimately, with other trainers). This allowed, for example, the software to change the load depending on the height or other data of the training programs. In other words, ANT + technology allows you to synchronize efforts with video and vice versa. When the application starts, it searches for compatible sensors to know what data to work with, so you need to program how much of the information will go to the virtual athlete on the screen.
Kinomap Products
According to the assurances of the developers, there is a demand for premium content in excess of the huge amount of data created by users. To take advantage of it and open up other possibilities for using Kinomap Reply - a new open API that allows other developers to transfer Kinomap content through their own third-party application. They can buy dedicated streaming hours or receive information indefinitely for a monthly fee, which then passes to the end user.
There is also the Kinomap Group Training training model, which allows you to track a lot of people and average their efforts for training in exercise rooms.
Sportiiiis Sports Display
How else is this technology used? 4iiii launches the Sportiiiis sports display, which syncs with the ANT + sensors on the bike to show the current state of your workout with simple LEDs. The system is mounted on any sunglasses and uses a number of red, yellow and green light sources, the last of which is in the center, indicating whether the athlete is above or below your target area. Voice prompts from the speaker on the rear panel provide a wider range of data, including heart rate, power, speed and cadence.
Out of competition
But what about Bluetooth? According to Jim Mayer, co-founder and technical director of Quarq, despite the hype surrounding the relatively low power consumption of this communication standard, ANT + is the only working wireless technology for real power measurements. Its great advantage is that one device can transmit data, and several can read. This is important for products like Sportiiiis and others (riders probably use a bicycle computer as their primary display ). With Bluetooth, it is connected to the phone or something else, and no other device can hear this transmitter.
An example of the benefits of such a solution in the real world is triathlon. You can connect a sports watch and a Garmin bicycle computer to the power meter, and they all gain access to the measurement results. Another example concerns the case when the display is in a command car, but the rider wants to see information on his computer. Probably, everyone will not need this, but the main thing is that users can do this. According to studies, approximately 30% of customers transmit data to multiple devices at the same time.
Working range
Although, according to the specification, the range of ANT + can reach 30 m, it is not said anywhere that all devices must provide this particular range. Most likely, manufacturers of sensors will stop at a sufficient minimum, for example, at a distance from the bicycle’s sensor to the steering wheel, thereby reducing power and significantly improving the internal battery life of the device. Kickr is powered by the network, so it can afford the maximum ANT + signal. The receiver also works at full power on a PC. Therefore, do not be surprised to easily receive signals from Kickr that the online calorie counter installed on the bicycle ceases to function if the simulator is moved a little further from the receiver.
Interference
ANT + devices do not interfere with each other due to channel coding, modulation scheme and very smart time division of signals. But Bluetooth, a cordless home phone, a smartphone’s WiFi and even home WiFi also occupy the very crowded unlicensed 2.4 GHz band. All these signals for ANT + are noise, can cause errors and affect the reception range. If there is reason to believe that the data are not true, you should look for extraneous radiation sources (including a microwave). Moving WiFi to a frequency of 5 GHz can help solve the problem so that each device in the room works in this band (if it is modern enough).
The USB3 hub is also capable of bringing chaos to the ANT + broadcast. If something similar is nearby, then you can try to disable it. If reception improves, then the source of interference is found.
What is ANT + in a smartphone?
ANT + is implemented on Sony and Samsung mobile phones. Apple does not support this technology. Other USB OTG smartphones , as well as PCs and Macs, require a USB adapter. In the first case, you will need to install the ANT USB Service application. The rest of the work of smartphones does not differ from the functioning of other devices that support this technology. Thanks to the time division technique, many devices use a single 1-MHz channel. Each source broadcasts in its own time interval. The message length is 150 μs, and the period between 8-byte broadcasts varies from 0.5 Hz to 200 Hz. Errors are corrected by 16-bit CRC. In case of interference, the channel may change. Frequency modulation with Gaussian filtering is used.
Availability
The alliance is not blind to the fact that many smartphones do not support ANT + technology. For this reason, new transmitters are released that are capable of broadcasting in different formats. 4iiiis has something similar built into the Viiiive’s heart rate monitor, which lets you use the iOS app to set up your Sportiiiis on the go. HTC, Sony and Samsung are starting to incorporate ANT + transceivers into their tablets, phones and laptops, and North Pole Engineering is making ANT-Wifi receivers that capture ANT + information and relay it over Wi-Fi in a format that can be accepted by iOS devices. To use them, the developer must integrate the WASP NPE module into his application, and the fitness industry is the main contender for its use. The cost of implementing the hardware and software of this technology is approximately the same as for Bluetooth.