ANT Forum

I'm happy to learn that all these young, healthy people have so many useful tools at hand -- or on their wrist. the only thing on the list that isn't about sports is the VIRB camera -- and that's for putting on your helmet when you're cycling or skiing.

I gave up running when arthritis took over my knees. Not much hiking either. I still want a GPS locator to tell me where I am, where I'm going an how to get there, but I don't need to know how many heartbeats it takes. I can't help thinking about all the other things we could do with this technology. How about pushing a button on my watch to turn on the outside lights when I'm sitting out on the deck in the evening? Better yet, a receiver that links to the whole X10 system. Or a button that tells the home security system to send an "I've fallen and I can't get up" message. A sensor to warn me when the basement is flooding? A link to the smoke detector?

Is anybody thinking about any of this? And if I want to take a shot at it, are there receiver/transmitter modules available?

     

Hi bsteele,

Thanks for your post, it's nice to see someone thinking about taking ANT in new directions. There is no reason that ANT wouldn't work well in the situations you describe, and there is a lot of buzz around home automation and home health applications in the market now. There are a handful of wellness focussed ANT+ Device Profiles: Blood Pressure Monitoring, Weight Scale, Glucose Monitoring and Pressure Sensor Array (for preventing pressure ulcers). The ANT+ Controls Device Profile is used by action cameras and bike computers at the moment, but would work fine for music players and deck lights. You could take a look at that for some ideas of how to structure control information over ANT, and either use it directly or create your own system (make sure you don't use the ANT+ network if you are designing your own system though).

There is a new development kit that will be available soon, which would be my recommended option for transmitter and receiver modules. Watch for the announcement when that is released.

Kind regards,

Kat      

Where will that be announced?

Just thought of another one that should be easy: We have a temperature sensor. How about humidity?

And maybe a submersible temperature sensor. I'm remembering the day the campers made the counselors go swimming so we could discover how effing cold the lake was.

Wind speed and direction would be tricky, but interesting.      

It will be on this website - I can add a reply to this post too so you don't miss it.

lol! That sounds like a memorable experience!

Common page 84 (in the common pages doc) includes a standard way to send pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction. It can be included in most device profiles and would be a good fit in the environment profile. I don't know of any ANT+ sensors on the market right now that use this, but you're welcome to build some!

Submersible sensors are a challenge as wireless signals are absorbed by water - so you'd need to keep the radio above the water, or measure and then upload afterwards.      

Hi BSteele,

The N5 Starter Kit is now available. Info is here: http://dynastream.com/developer/n5starterkit and here: http://www.thisisant.com/developer/components/n5/#490_tab

Also I should clarify my post above: You're welcome to build new ANT sensors doing anything you like. You can also build sensors for the ANT+ network, (i.e. using the network key) but these MUST conform to an ANT+ device profile.      

I'm not sure I'm that smart - yet, anyway. Working through the Getting Started page. I don't suppose anyone has written "ANT+ for Dummies"?      

You're the second person to ask for it, but the getting started section is the best we have for now. If you're technically inclined you will probably find it's easier than you think! The ANT Message Protocol and Usage doc covers all the basics, and then working with a starter kit is great.

The ANT protocol is surprisingly simple - and if you have specific questions you can always come here for help.