Good day! I have been using a laptop and ANT+ dongle to read my G3 powermeter, Garmin cadence sensor, and HR strap for awhile now. I use a fluid trainer and have used Zwift and Sufferfest. I do not have an android phone, so am I right in assuming I can not use Xert without some other piece of hardware?
depends on which Android phone, some of the Samsungs have or had native ability to receive Ant+ signals, my A5 does it just fine. There are android ways to get it to work with a dongle but I am not certain the methods. There is a third/4th solution called a CABLE from North Pole Electronics that takes Ant+ and converts to BLE or you can get a 4iiii heart rate strap which also converts an Ant+ signal to BLE (bluetooth).
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Thanks for your reply, Ron. I only have an Apple phone, and about 2 days in a locked down province to get a fix because the event I’m scheduled to do is on Saturday morning. I think I might me SOL.
If you can get your hands on a Samsung/Sony device, many have native ANT+ support and Xert EBC would work with your setup. Good luck!
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Thanks Scott. I’ll have to start asking around.
Depends what you want to do with Xert and what you mean by event here… if you are doing a race and just want to analyse it afterwards, just record it and upload it as usual… the solutions in this thread are about using the player to run workouts or sessions, so thought I’d check
Not sure which G3 power meter you have (stages or power tap) or how many generations there are, but take it you’re sure you can’t connect via Bluetooth to your iPhone?
Also, I assume you don’t use a Garmin bike Computer with the potential to add the garmin player or data fields (the latter can be added to some garmin watches too)
Hi Wesley,
I’m doing the Paris to Ancaster virtual race which has been set up through Xert. It’s a simulation of the course we would be riding if not for COVID. I’m pretty familiar with virtual platforms (five years training on Zwift) but when I use that it’s the ant+ dongle picking up my powertap hub PM and the other sensors. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think my PM sends a BLE signal. I’ll have to look into it. Thanks for making me question my assumptions about that.
For your iPhone, you can pickup a Cable from North Pole Engineering or a Viiiiva Heart Rate monitor. Either of these will work as a bridge that will allow you to pair your ANT devices to your iPhone via Bluetooth. Work great.
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Does the Viiiiva create several BT channels for the same device, so that we can connect it to several apps ?
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I think the 4iiii is one in, one out as well it is one direction unlike the cable which is bidirectional.
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Which is fine because we usually use only one app to control what ever device we use.
But we may need several apps to display the data from the sensor. Yeah, I’m still thinking about using Xert/EBC with RideWithGPS for the best navigation with directions.
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I think Bluetooth is unlike Ant+ in how it links to a receiving device, for some signals I seem to recall it is 1 to 1 or at best 1 to 2 receivers, while Ant+ is one to many receivers.
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Yes, but by converting Ant+ to BT, can the Viiiiva create a distinct BT signal for each app from one single Ant+ emitter !?
[Ant+]
/ \
/ \
[BT1] [BT2]Pretty sure it doesn’t do this with 1 HRM. If you had 2 HRMs…
Has anybody got the Viiva to work? The power measurements it sends to my iPhone are not correct.
I was looking at a CABLE, but the freight on them is insane ($103).
We’ve tested with the Viiiiva and have not seen any issues. Too bad about the Cable. We’re releasing some new capabilities with it on Android and iOS. Currently the Android app supports them. iOS almost ready. WIll announce the new features then.
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I’ve got a CABLE I’m not using, based in Sweden.
DM if you’re interested in buying it.
I found somewhere that had reasonable freight. I tried the CABLE a couple of times but I got dropouts and gave up on the idea of using a smartphone as a bike computer.
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