ANT+ USB stick and simulator in Linux

I bought a new Garmin ANT+ USB stick. When I plug it in to the laptop (Ubuntu 22.04) I do see it in lsusb. I use the latest SDK (1.4.5)

However I don't see any ant devices (I have a HRM-SS and a Polar H10) in the simulator (Settings > Manage ANT+ Sensors) nor do they show up in my datafield (that does work on real watch)

Is there anyone who can successfully connect an ANT device to the simulator in Linux?

Top Replies

flocsy🤠 over 1 year ago in reply to jim_m_58 +2

This has nothing to do with the company size. If that was the case then you would see Lenovo laptops or Apple computers having this amount of bugs that don't have any solution from the company. It's clearly…
Jan Čapek over 1 year ago in reply to flocsy🤠 +1

Still same for Windows 10. I just can't believe it... And I thought nothing will surprise me after so many years here in the past observing inability of the team to properly fix 9/10 bugs.
Jan Čapek over 1 year ago in reply to jim_m_58 +1

You will defend them to the very end of the platform, Jim. It is not about how big the staff is but about ratio between new stuff in development and maintenance + ability to synchronise related stuff with…

All Replies

0 jim_m_58 over 2 years ago

I've only used an Ant Stick on windows, but there I just plug it in, restart the sim, and then run an app that looks for that device - a Tempe in the case of the app I'm running in the sim. Even when the Tempe is connected, nothing shows in Settings>manage Ant Sensors, but my app shows the Tempe data.

The Tempe is a bit unique in that it never goes to sleep. With your sensors, make sure they are awake (being worn in the case of a HRM)

0 flocsy🤠 over 2 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

the sensor is awake, I see it in the watch's menu, but not in the app. I guess it's down to some permission issues on linux...

0 flocsy🤠 over 2 years ago

Opened a bug report, since it looks like related to the simulator on Linux: forums.garmin.com/.../garmin-usb-ant-stick-doesn-t-work-in-simulator-on-linux

0 maca88 over 2 years ago in reply to flocsy🤠

With version 4.1.x Ant.GenericChannel does not work in simulator anymore, try to use SDK version 4.0.10, it works on Windows. I also fill a bug for it some time ago: https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/i/bug-reports/regression-bug-ant-genericchannel-does-not-work-in-simulator-with-sdk-4-1-x-anymore

0 flocsy🤠 over 2 years ago in reply to maca88

I tried it now on SDK 4.0.10 on Linux, but unfortunately the only difference between 4.1.5 and 4.0.10 is that the latter also prints the following sentence:

"Unable to connect to an ANT device; no devices available"

even though the HRM-SS is enabled and the watch sees it.

0 flocsy🤠 over 2 years ago

see also: forums.garmin.com/.../1522922

0 flocsy🤠 over 1 year ago

I was able to test the same Garmin ANT+ USB dongle with Mac, and it works. So I can confirm with 100% certainty that the Linux simulator has a bug and the ANT dongles don't work.

0 Jan Čapek over 1 year ago in reply to flocsy🤠

Still same for Windows 10. I just can't believe it... And I thought nothing will surprise me after so many years here in the past observing inability of the team to properly fix 9/10 bugs.

0 flocsy🤠 over 1 year ago in reply to Jan Čapek

It's probably not that much of inability, but I think a) they (the teams who could fix it) don't even know about most (90%) of the bugs because the forum is not monitored (either by any Garmin employee or only by some QA but they don't pass everything) and probably out of the 10% they know they don't care to fix 90%, so we're left with 1% of the reported bugs being fixed. They never really seem to care about "known" or "legacy" bugs, only ever fix things that are discovered during alpha/beta phase (and most not even then)

0 jim_m_58 over 1 year ago in reply to flocsy🤠

Bugs have priorities ("voting" doesn't really do that much by the way). In the sim, go to "about" and then "developers", and you'll see the size of the CIQ engineering team. A couple people have left and been replaced, but the size of the group hasn't changed that much. Everyone you see there I've met in person at the CIQ Summits. The QA group is also small. I can recall when it was just Brandon!

So CIQ has priority for bug fixes and some can take a long time (I can think of a few that took a year!), but it gets even more complex if the issue is on a device, as the product groups sets their own priority where CIQ issues could be very low on their list. Current devices seen to get updated production FW something like every quarter, and new CIQ SDKs, only get released every few months. .

This is why it's always good to look for a work-around when you find a bug as a fix could take time.