Which ANT+ to BLE bridge to buy?

General Discussion
21

There’s absolutely nothing at all to suggest ANT+ is going to be phased out of Zwift. I can’t see why cycling computer manufacturers would phase it out any time soon either, given that they’d be deliberately limiting their pool of potential customers by excluding those who already own devices that broadcast ANT+, like you do. You obviously need a solution to the issue of your chosen Zwift platform not supporting ANT+, but that’s no reflection on the lifespan of the protocol. The proportion of phones and tablets that have ever supported ANT+ natively is miniscule.

For what it’s worth, Bluetooth is actually the older technology of the two.

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22

No, but sorry, I was focused on Android. It does look to me as though Ant+ is being either phased out, or else just disregarded somewhat, in the Android world. This goes as far as not even supporting Ant+ dongles, because of the obscure permission required that is itself not supported. Obviously, as I said, its life on other platforms looks at least longer.

23

It’s never been even close to a common feature on Android though, so describing it as being phased out wouldn’t really be fair. It’s a bit like saying thermometers are being phased out. As I said, it’s only an absolutely tiny minority of devices which have ever had ANT+. Using the current ANT Directory, there are 114 mobile devices listed, almost all of which are Samsung (about 20 tablets). There were previously some Sony Xperia phones too. Virtually all of these devices are much too old to even run Zwift anyway.

GSMArena’s database currently lists over 6,000 Android phones and tablets.

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I’m interested in where people are now on this. I’m still using Android with an Ant+ power meter, so still needing a bridge. I mentioned upthread that I’d bought a CABLE. It’s been OK, but prone to cause occasional problems. I think I had battery issues most recently, but I’ve replaced those and it still won’t connect. I had the chance to pick up a 4iiii Viiiiva heart rate monitor (as mentioned by others here), second-hand but unused, so I’ve tried that, and it just worked in a way that the CABLE hasn’t.

Would be nice if Zwift were to give more feedback on connected sensors, such as battery levels (where the sensor broadcasts those, obviously).