Awesome Red Bull Ant Picture Courtesy: Eyeweed on Flickr
Remember when you could hear your neighbor’s cordless phone through your baby monitor? (Wasn’t there a movie about that where someone heard their own murder being planned over their baby monitor? I digress.) Hearing a cordless phone through a baby monitor was possible because they shared the same “analog” wireless communication protocol. Essentially, they spoke the same language.
Heart rate monitors have the same problem because the heart rate monitor wirelessly talks to your watch. “Analog” heart rate monitors can interfere with each other. If you are in the gym that type of interference is a real hassle. In fact, it can render your heart rate monitor useless. Even if you are riding your bike outside with a few friends, this interference can cause your heart rate monitor to be unreliable.
Today your cordless phone is “digital” so your phone, your neighbors phone, and your baby monitor don’t accidentally talk to each other. Using different forms of digital communications, manufacturers can make sure that their watches only speak with their heart rate monitors. Now your heart rate monitor would only work with certain watches. No crosstalk. Problem solved? Not exactly?
What if you want to buy a new heart rate monitor or a new heart rate monitor watch? You would have to buy one from the same manufacturer. Or what if you wanted to wear your heart rate monitor at the gym while on the treadmill? Now the treadmill manufacturer couldn’t make their treadmill talk a single “analog” language. They had to make their treadmill talk a different language for each heart rate monitor. What if you wanted your iPhone to talk with your heart rate monitor? Or your bathroom scale? Making all of these devices communicate with each other would be unrealistic.
Enter ANT.
ANT, which has now evolved to ANT+, is a relatively new standard for digital communication between devices that is becoming popular with health and fitness manufacturers. Using ANT+, the treadmill at the gym, your heart rate monitor, your heart rate monitor watch, your bathroom scale, and your iPhone can all talk with each other. Pretty cool.
Look for this on the treadmill
Heart rate manufacturers are getting behind ANT+ in a big way. Garmin, Timex, Suunto and other heart rate manufacturers are producing heart rate monitors which are ANT+ compatible. However, Polar, the biggest heart rate manufacturer, is trying to go it alone. So far, Polar hasn’t jumped on the ANT+ bandwagon. Only time will tell if Polar takes the plunge. Until that happens, you’re out of luck if you want your ANT+ adapter on your iPhone or you ANT+ compatible footpod to communicate with your Polar HRM.
One more thing- dual mode heart rate monitors. Remember the treadmill problem? The treadmill manufactures would have to talk with each type of digital heart rate monitor. In many cases, they didn’t take that approach. They simply took advantage of the “analog” heart rate monitors because it was easy to be compatible with those. If the treadmills (or other gym equipment) in your gym aren’t compatible with ANT+ yet, there is a good chance you can use a dual mode heart rate monitor (analog + ANT) with that equipment. If you need the “best of both heart rate monitor worlds” be sure to look for a dual-mode heart rate monitor.
So let’s summarize- ANT’s are good for your next heart rate monitor but ANT’s aren’t found in the Polar regions. (I know, that was really bad but I couldn’t resist.)
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