What is an ant radio service ?

Ant radio service is a service that is either pre-installed in your device or can be installed in order to communicate wirelessly with the other device that has the same ANT radio service installed. This is used for the communication between the two devices just like the Wi-Fi devices and the Bluetooth devices. This ant radio service is the one that acts as a communication medium between these devices. The wearable devices such as heart rate monitor and fitness monitor watches use this Ant radio service. 

This ant radio service comes pre-installed in the new Android devices. If not you will get the latest Android updates. The important benefit of this ant radio service is that it will not get activated until the app that requires the Ant radio service is activated. Only if you open the app the service will get started and it really saves a lot of memory usage. So nowadays are for these wearable devices developers are opting for this Ant radio service.

Below are some of the devices that are starting to use this Ant Radio service. These are primarily used in apps that have the ability to measure your heartbeat, steps, calorie count and detects falls, etc. 

Uses of ANT:

Ant is just like Wi-Fi networking used to connect the devices. Ant attracts developer eyes because it uses very low power to connect to the devices. The data transmission is done in a very robust and reliable way. Lakhs of devices are already in the field using this ANT technology. This technology is very suitable for the devices that are used in LAN-type communication.

ANT protocol is used in devices that require to be operated with low power and in a compact size device. Also, the devices are required to be used in a single chip. It must be compatible with that. Also, there should be a strong and reliable connection so that the data must not be lost in the transmission.

Also, there are two types of ANT devices. They are ANT and ANT+. A few minor differences are there between them. Mostly the ANT devices operate between 2400MHz -2524MHz frequencies but ANT devices should not use the frequency 2457MHz because it is exclusively reserved for the ANT+ devices.

Categories of devices that use ANT protocol:

There are too many application requirements for ANT. The below are some of the categories where devices that use ANT are deployed. 

1. Action Camera
2. Activity Monitor
3. Apple iOS Apps
4. Bike computers
5. Gym Equipment
6. Bike power meters
7. Garmin Connect IQ Apps
8. Geocache sensors
9. Android Apps that track heartbeat
10. Handheld GPS devices
11. Mobile Phones
12. USB Sticks

Advantages of this ANT Protocol:

1. Ability to work in high density

These ANT protocol enabled devices can be deployed in large numbers within the RF range. They can work without getting into trouble with the frequency ranges of the other devices. This is a very important feature for an ANT-enabled device. Imagine there are a group of 100 people in an auditorium and all of them have their wristwatch in their hand tracking their own heartbeat and send the data to their own mobile devices.

2. Send data from one device to multiple devices

The ANT devices must have the ability to send the detected data from one device to multiple devices. It must have the required serviceability to send data without getting crossover data from the other devices.

3. Receive data from multiple devices

The device must have the ability to receive data from many devices. The device must have to correlate and aggregate the data received. The device must use as much less energy as possible in order to operate like this.

4. To have a good proximity sensor

Ability to perform a function when in a particular environment for example you can secure the laptop with this wearable device. The wearable device will have an encrypted security code. If you are near the computer then the computer will be unlocked. Once you move away from the computer then the device will be removal of the device from the particular location.

5. Ability to form Master-Slave communication:

The device must have the ability to relay the data it received from the other device and relay it to the device which is nearby. In places where it is impossible to have a transmitter and receiver separately for the purpose of data transmission, the master-slave method is used to transmit the data between the devices that have these ANT protocols enabled.

There are multiple uses for these ANT protocol-enabled products. Some of the applications are explained below.

1. Blood pressure monitoring

ANT-enabled devices can be used to monitor the blood pressure in the user body. It will monitor the blood pressure and send that data from the wearable device to the phone or some other device that can aggregate the data and provide the user with some useful insights.

2. Collect Workout data

You can use these wearables to collect the data from your body when you do the workout. It can also find the number of calories burnt by your body. You need to track this information with the help of this ANT+ protocol-enabled wearables and send those data to the mobile devices.

3. Personal Fall Alert

This is one of the important applications of this ANT radio service. Your wearable might have this feature that can alert your close friends if you have fallen down unexpectedly. You can even give this to your grandparents if you like to keep an eye on their health. It can track the heart rate, blood pressure and will alert you if the user has fallen down. To find out if the user has fallen down then the device needs to be fast to detect the fall and send the data to the device you have connected. 

For this purpose, the ANT protocol device is used. These are some of the important uses of this ANT radio service. There are much wider applications of this ANT protocol.