ANT+ Membership Program and Product Certification Program Changes
The ANT+ membership program and ANT+ product certification programs, along with associated engineering support will discontinue on June 30, 2025. In anticipation of these changes, the ANT+ Adopter Agreement was updated on January 3, 2025.
Reason for the Changes
ANT+ was developed in 2004 as a low-power wireless communications standard and has been an essential part of cycling and fitness ecosystems for the past twenty years. However, there is currently a changing regulatory landscape that would require substantial ANT+ redevelopment which would also break compatibility across the established ecosystem of products. Since most of the value for ANT+ is based on compatibility, redesigning the system to meet the new standards is not a feasible path forward.
I’m sure @dcrainmaker is busy writing an explanation for this as we speak.
I’ll wait for that before trying to get my head around it
Sounds like it isn’t necessarily the end for Ant+ and current devices will still work… but if manufacturers are going to have a load of extra certification to do now, and given that low power Bluetooth has matured a lot since over the last decade… I can see Ant+ disappearing.
Shame because that’s my primary connection protocol, but all my devices are Bluetooth enabled too so even if it got tuned off tomorrow I’d be fine.
Except for running Zwift and TR together on my PC… that would be a faff.
In the end, users don’t care. They want their devices to do what they do to communicate every time and when they don’t, will have a simple solution. ANT+ or BTLE, they want it to just work.
My ANT+ dongle died over a year ago and I never replaced it.
Apple not supporting it was yet another thing that Apple thumbed their nose at. Blu-ray support being another one. I found it odd when I heard that some of the chipsets they used supported it, if there were only antennas and drivers for it.
I read about turning off protocols that we ‘don’t need’, and I turned of ANT+ for my Di2 system, and do not do that! You never know what one device is using and what it might really need to work. Leave them both on…
Actually it was Shimano that violated standards on ANT/ANT+ when they shoved Hammerhead out of the club by using a private profile.
I’m really hoping the industry doesn’t go their own protocols like how back in the day if you used a polar head until you could only use polar straps. I really like being able to use whatever HRM/ speed sensor/powermeter company I want and it’s guaranteed to work with my Garmin
I don’t see any way around it. While the Bluetooth spec covers sensor authorization (and it sucks in most implementations, as demonstrated by Google via Pixel Watch HR broadcasting and to a lesser extent Polar’s broadcasting features), the reality is, these companies will eventually want to innovate.
All of this limits that innovation. These companies are stuck between two hard rocks:
Rock A: The EU RED and eventually EU CRA
Rock B: The Bluetooth SIG being non-functional/useless
I can’t publish all the bad words companies have had about the Bluetooth SIG, for one, there’s too much profanity in much of it, and two, none want it on the record. It went from being somewhat workable a decade ago, to companies being heavily ticked at it.
Well, why don’t the major players get together outside of the official SIG(s) and just agree on protocols? As a consumer, I don’t care if it’s an official protocol or one that the players agree on and publish so it’s available to anyone
It seems Ike Wahoo worked around this back in the day by sort of open sourcing their spec. Is that the answer here for Bluetooth LE profiles moving forward as opposed to purely proprietary?
Apple is a company that’s notorious for their ecosystem lock-in. But in the world of cycling, is there an Apple equivalent? I don’t think so. Not even close. So taking a proprietary approach for device profiles is likely not going to have the effect a brand is looking for. However, if you lead an open sourcd Bluetooth LE profile, you at least have influence if not full control. Maybe?
Sorry, it was Shimano using a private profile to punish Hammerhead, and threaten the other manufacturers with finding themselves ousted from the Shimano Club.
Was that the story with Kinetic? As I remember it, they tried to go their own way and left people behind, and customers having problems with connectivity?
Going out on a limb: Since the EU likes to establish standards to protect the consumer from charging/data connector proliferation, internet monopolies, and such, maybe they could mandate BT sports sensors communication standards to ensure interoperability between platforms, for the protection of consumer choice.
IMO the EU has not really acted to protect the customers, in some cases they have done almost the opposite. Demanding the companies to make changes that effectively decrease the customer safety is just stupid. I think the EU listens too closely the demands of the chinese manufacturers and it may cause problems in the future. I really hope that the EU will stay away from the sports tech.
