ANT+ or pronounced as ANT PLUS is kinda like a protocol design by the ANT+ Alliance. It is an interoperability function, an open access multicast wireless sensor network technology. As you know, Xperia X8 was also equipped with this ability. Nowadays it become so popular among fitness enthusiast especially since the NFC was introduce.
So what the hell does it do?
Well ANT+ is a wireless protocol that operates to collect and transfer data from the sensor and it’s also integrate a remote control systems. The main focus seem to be on sport and wellness but it was also for home care and remote control.
It can be used for data-transfer for a number of devices such as:-
• Heart Rate monitors
• Cadence sensors
• Foot pods
• Power meters
• Body mass index measuring devices
• Blood pressure monitors
• And tonnes of other things.
This technology keep growing and growing each day especially with the rise of the mobile devices. You can find it on Mobile, watches, bicycle, MP3s player, and other things that I also don’t know.
Trending on the world nowadays is more on general fitness tasks, medical and remote control functions. ANT+ is implemented on more than 35 applications and produced by over 27 different manufacturers.
The Company behind the ANT+ Alliance is Dynastream Innovations Inc, a subsidiary of Garmin Ltd.
Currently there are more than 300 members in the Alliance and most are the extremely popular brands like Adidas, Samsung, Qualcomm, Sony, Timex and etc.
Most Android Devices has ANT+ Plugins which enable the phone or devices to communicate with the Application. Well this part is more to development as to enable a device to work properly with the software certain pairing and decoding are required.
The ANT+ Plugins feature multi-app concurrency, where any number of apps may have access to the same data coming from the same sensor simultaneously, and any number of phones/devices may read data from the same sensor simultaneously. This opens additional use cases such as always-on background monitoring for multiple apps, group training, etc
If you still don’t get it. Lets imagine how your phone connect to Wifi router. To connect to a wifi network ur phone need to recognise the signal from the wifi and it needs to provide an IP so the router can recognise your phone and allow a connection to the router which will connect your phone to the internet. That is roughly called an internet protocol. The different is in ANT+ protocol your phone is just connecting to a device or application that can read your heart beat, your body mass index and etc.
If you study on electronic communication or computer engineering you will understand it easier. I’m sorry if I got it wrong but I’m trying really hard here.
Thanks.
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