For some of the Xperia™ devices, we provide Android™ Open Source Project (AOSP) device configurations on GitHub. This means that the software will be open for you as a developer to use and contribute to. This is a way for us to support the open Android community, and it is also a tool for us to facilitate and verify contributions to AOSP.
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ANT+
ANT+ is a reliable digital wireless personal network protocol standard with excellent power efficiency, mainly designed for gathering and transfer of sensor data, and it has become especially popular within the sports and health industry. It facilitates the collection, automatic transfer and tracking of sensor data for monitoring information. There are a number of Xperia™ smartphones supporting ANT+, for the full list, please see the bottom of this page. This means that you will be able to use your Sony smartphone with a large number of commercial health and fitness products. For example, you can use your phone with a heart rate monitor, a pedometer, or both, when you are out running.
There are number of different ANT+ enabled sensors and devices available in the market today. In addition, there are a large number of ANT+ supported apps to collect, analyse, compare and share your data in various ways. These devices and apps can turn your Sony smartphone into a main hub for fitness and health activities, as well as for communication and entertainment. To find out exactly what Sony smartphones are supported, please see the bottom of this page.
Today more and more companies are joining the ANT+ Alliance, which is a partner alliance striving for the growth of the ANT+ ecosystem. This ensures compatibility with other leading suppliers all throughout the ecosystem.
Developing ANT+ applications
If you’re interested in developing apps supporting ANT+, the first step is to get the ANT+ Android application API from the ANT website, where the ANT+ emulator is also available. Dynastream (the company behind ANT+) recently announced this emulator, which means it is now possible to develop ANT+ apps using just the Android™ device emulator, and an ANT USB stick plugged into a PC.
The official ANT+ profile documentation can be found in the ANT+ Adopter’s Zone. The ANT+ Adopter’s Zone also contains many other useful things such as the ANT+ device simulators which can be used to simulate ANT+ devices for testing your applications. If you have questions about developing ANT+ apps, the ANT+ forums are a great place to find answers.
ANT+ explained
In the ANT+ ecosystem, an Android smartphone could be used in several different ways. It could be the sensor broadcasting data, or the receiver storing data and possibly displaying it. But it could also be the Internet gateway to publish data. Or, it could be everything at once. To find out more about ANT+ and the latest news about the ANT+ emulator, we spoke with Jeff Fung, who is one of the main developers at Dynastream.
So Jeff, what makes ANT+ such an interesting technology for developers? I think it’s an exciting technology, not only because it allows the phone to be used as a display device for the millions of ANT+ biking, running and heart rate sensors that are already in the consumer’s hands, but also because it opens up many new possibilities for phone connectivity in other areas, such as connecting to ANT+ health and activity monitoring devices, geocache tags, and ANT+ enabled light electric vehicles. All of these use cases are defined in published ANT+ profiles available to ANT+ adopters at the ANT website.What’s so good about the ANT wireless protocol?
The flexibility of the ANT wireless protocol allows for low power connectivity between all ANT-enabled devices regardless of their role (master/slave) on other networks. Peer connections between phones as well as connections between phones and other “hub” or master devices, allow for some interesting use cases. One example could be to use sports watches and bicycle computers to control the phone’s calling, music, messaging, and camera functions.
How does the new ANT+ emulator for Android™ work? The ANT+ emulator allows you to run and develop ANT+ enabled applications in the standard Android™ emulator running on a Windows PC. It works by bridging the ANT+ communications from the Android emulator to an ANT USB stick plugged into the PC. This allows for the development and debugging of ANT+ enabled applications inside of the emulator environment without the need to use an actual ANT+ enabled smart phone. Our hope is that this will open the door for more developers to start creating their own innovative ANT+ applications.
ANT+ supported Sony devices (as of October 13, 2014)
- Live with Walkman
- Xperia acro S
- Xperia active
- Xperia arc
- Xperia arc S
- Xperia C3
- Xperia C3 dual
- Xperia E3
- Xperia E3 dual
- Xperia ion HSPA
- Xperia ion LTE
- Xperia M2
- Xperia M2 Aqua
- Xperia M2 dual
- Xperia mini
- Xperia mini pro
- Xperia neo
- Xperia neo V
- Xperia pro
- Xperia ray
- Xperia S
- Xperia SL
- Xperia T2 Ultra
- Xperia T2 Ultra dual
- Xperia T3
- Xperia X8
- Xperia x10 mini
- Xperia x10 mini pro
- Xperia Z1
- Xperia Z1 Compact
- Xperia Z2
- Xperia Z2 Tablet
- Xperia Z3
- Xperia Z3 Compact
- Xperia Z3 dual
- Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
- Xperia Z3v
- Xperia Z Ultra
More information
- Check out the ANT website.
- Find the ANT device profiles.
- Get the ANT+ Android emulator and the ANT+ Android application API .
- Check out the official ANT+ profile documentation.
- Ask questions and interact with other developers in the ANT forum.
- Check out our previous ANT related blog posts.