Strava supports Ant+

route66

Apologies if I'm the last person in the world to know this, but I've been using Strava since 2012 and I just discovered that it now works with ANT+ devices - at least with my phone, a Samsung S5 running Android Marshmallow.

I have a cheapo Bryton 20+ computer which came with cadence and HR monitors and when having a look at my recording Strava session at the weekend, I noticed a triangular icon on the screen. I pressed it and then saw it telling me that there was an ANT+ sensor available. I clicked on "+" and it added my cadence sensor. I later added my HR monitor as well.

I stopped using the Bryton because I was too lazy to have to separately charge it and connect it to a laptop to upload rides - Strava is so handy here - but missed the extra info that the sensors provided.

Again, apologies if everybody else in the world knows this but thought it worthwhile to risk the shame just in case this isn't generally known

Unknown Soldier

As far as I can tell, it is your phone that supports ANT+ tech, and as such, so does Strava! It's a hardware thing, rather than Strava/Software.

lennymc

does it? I thought they only supported bluetooth (last time I checked)

diarmaidol

Maybe you have dual band sensors. Some support ANT+ and Bluetooth LE.

Unknown Soldier

lennymc wrote: »

does it? I thought they only supported bluetooth (last time I checked)

https://www.thisisant.com/news/ant-continues-to-link-wearable-technology-with-samsung-flagship-products

A list of devices... https://www.thisisant.com/directory/filter/2316/~/~/

route66

From what I understand, the limitation has been on the Strava side and not the phone - I'm getting the impression from various comments in the Android App Store that the support in Strava for ANT+ is a recent development. Other apps like IPBike have supported ANT+ for as long as I can remember. Hardware is required for ANT+ and this has been included in most Samsung and Sony phones for some time (don't know about other Android or Apple phones).

This July-dated page on the Strava site gives more details: https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216919007-Android-and-external-Biometric-sensors

I'd be interested to know if anyone has used an ANT+ sensor with the Android Strava app before now. But as I said in the opening post, maybe I just never noticed this.

Cookie_Monster

route66 wrote: »

I'd be interested to know if anyone has used an ANT+ sensor with the Android Strava app before now. But as I said in the opening post, maybe I just never noticed this.

No, I did try and sort it out late last year and discovered it wouldn't be done on the app with ANT+ at the time so continued to run with my edge rather than just the phone. PITA!

route66

diarmaidol wrote: »

Maybe you have dual band sensors. Some support ANT+ and Bluetooth LE.

AFAIK mine are ANT+ only - and Strava shows them as ANT+.

godtabh

Very few phones have ANT+ so its not a Strava limitation but rather a phone limitation

lennymc

looking at the release notes for Strava it looks like ANt+ was introduced in the 4.9 release of strava which was available in June. Sweet. Thanks OP

Alek

My Xperia 3 can connect natively to ANT+ devices (Garmin's HR, cadence and speed) and I can use them in many applications, including Strava. I normally use Oruxmaps though.

I've switched from Edge 810 and not looking back.

route66

godtabh wrote: »

Very few phones have ANT+ so its not a Strava limitation but rather a phone limitation

It's actually both. The phone needs ANT+ and the application needs to support ANT+ Sensors.

The purpose of my post was to let people know that recent versions of Strava support ANT+ devices and that therefore if your phone supports ANT+ and you use Strava, you can now get get more data in your Strava-recorded ride without having to use a bike computer.

Speaking as somebody who always uses Strava, had a phone that supports ANT+ and is generally to lazy to use my bike computer (having to separately recharge it and download the ride data from it), this is a huge plus for me.

Lots of phones have ANT+. Supported devices include very popular Android Samsung and Sony phones and various options exist for phones without native support, including iOS - more here - although I'm not sure if this would be worth the effort.


As already mentioned above, the full list of supported devices is here

lennymc

Doesnt work with power or cadence from power meter apparently