# How does the ANT+ dongle work with a road bike and wahoo blue sc?



## rbhatup (May 31, 2018)

I've been riding with zwift for several weeks, and lately there has been many drops between my win7 pc and the bike.

This is my setup: windows 7 PC with the zwift app, a Mag classic trainer, a wahoo blue sc sensor, an iphone with zwift mobile link, and my bike.

So zwift suggests that I buy an ant+ dongle and turn off bluetooth. So my question is: how does the ANT+ dongle work in this case?

This is what zwift said about the ant+ dongle: With your iPhone connected to the same WiFi network unable to communicate over other WiFi networks in the area and both Bluetooth and Mobile Data disabled, you should still be able to connect Zwift Companion over WiFi to Zwift and use all the features of Zwift Companion - you just won't be able to pair through it.


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## mik_git (Jul 27, 2012)

Ant+ is a communication protocol (+ means its an open one so anyone can use/talk to it, - means it closed and only the people making the signal can use it). 
So you plug the dongle in and it opens up an extra communication system that the PC can listen for/send to. You already have bluetooth and wifi, now you also have ant+, so it can receive stuff from whatever is broadcasting (trainer info/garmin sensors whatever) and send out info to a device that is listening (trainer, garmin head unit etc).
So in this case I assume using the Ant+ dongle it will free up the bluetooth do do other stuff avoid crosstalk?

I have an older Trax trainer and it came with a dongle it used to pick up rpm, cadence etc from the trainer through the dongle, it would also send out so it would ramp up the load etc. It would also pick up cadence and HR from my garmin sensors. But if I left it in it would also talk to my old Garmin watch and I could use the Trax dongle and the Garmin dongle which ever I left pluged in, both would work the same.


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## PJay (May 28, 2004)

I had one of these locator fob deals that had limited range, of about a mile. From reading about it, I eventually figured out the communications system was a specialized version of bluetooth. Possibly just bluetooth, but with some special communication protocol to limit communication to a few recognized devices, of a family of devices (ie not all bluetooth but only ones form this company).

I bought this deal because it did not require a subscription for the tracking, with the down-side being you only have maybe a mile and a half range. That, I figured, was fine for me to know if the kids were somewhere between elementary school and home.

My guess is that this proprietary ANT+ system may be just bluetooth with similar limits, to work only with devices from that company. With identify embedded in the protocol programming of each device.


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## mik_git (Jul 27, 2012)

Oh forgot to add, Ant+ is owned by Garmin, which is why Gramin stuff is/has always been all Ant+ and they slowly moved to add BLE. I think the varia radar is Ant-, which is why it doesn't work with other head units like Wahoo etc (but I'm sure they could reverse engineer it if they really wanted to).


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## DaveG (Feb 4, 2004)

rbhatup said:


> I've been riding with zwift for several weeks, and lately there has been many drops between my win7 pc and the bike.
> 
> This is my setup: windows 7 PC with the zwift app, a Mag classic trainer, a wahoo blue sc sensor, an iphone with zwift mobile link, and my bike.
> 
> ...


Bluetooth and ANT+ use similar frequency bands so they can interfere with one another. If you switch to ANT+ get yourself a USB extender and get the ANT dongle very close to your sensor


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## DaveG (Feb 4, 2004)

The ANT Alliance is funded by a company owned by Garmin but it is an open published standard. It's job it to maintain the standard and verify compliance. Any company can make a ANT+ device


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