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ANT Battery Level for LIGHTS

DaveBrillhart
over 2 years ago

I don't expect anyone will know this. Kind of a corner case. But frustrating that there doesn't seem to be a solution.

I can get the battery levels for my ANT Shifters, Radar, Power Meters, Speed sensors, etc. Unfortunately, HEART RATE is still not supported by CIQ.

I can even get it for my Headlight and Taillight.

For a 24 hr ride I have coming up, I'll have two ANT headlights I can swap out. The issue is, I can't see distinctions between the two headlights to report on their individual battery levels.

I can POLL the Light Network and see I have two devices. But in the Page 0x01 onMessage(msg) where the battery status is reported, there is no device ID. And "msg.deviceNumber" is not populated.

So both headlights will send a Page 0x01. With their battery status (eg: GOOD, OK, CRITICAL, etc). But there is no way to know which headlight is reporting. Not a big deal. But if anyone has played with ANT LIGHTS and knows how to grab the device ID from the responding lights and can tie that ID to the Page 0x01 onMessage... let me know. Thanks!!

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to DaveBrillhart

    Hi

    I see you constantly mix Wahoo with Polar :) IMHO those are 2 different companies.

    Regarding the voltage: I don't think Polar sends it. They send 0xFF for the fractional which alone indeed doesn't mean it's invalid (though it's a good choice IMHO), because look what the standard tells:

    1. However, a value of 255 (0xFF) in the fractional field does not indicate that the voltage data field is invalid. This can only be determined by the value in the descriptive bit field.

    2. Descriptive Bit Field (bits 0-3):  0xF (15): Invalid

    As I mentioned above I don't think Polar are misinterpreting the standard. I think the standard is not clear, because it gives no information to the manufacturer what should New/Good/OK/Low/Critical mean. I don't like this very much, but that's how it is. So it's left to the manufacturer. I agree that it looks like it's not in line with the intention of the standard, because having these enum values HINT that New >= Good >= OK >= Low >= Critical. However based on the fact that Polar don't transmit battery voltage, and seemingly neither proper percentage my guess is that they have some way to detect SOME information and they probably mapped that to battery level > threshold => 100%, OK, level < threshold => 10% (or whatever, I haven't used it enough), Critical. Or something like that. If the HW can't differentiate between New/Good/OK, then sending OK for months makes more sense than calling it New.

    With all that said I did report it as a bug (or something that confuses users) to Polar, let's see if they can (or will) do anything with it. You can also report it, maybe it helps: https://support.polar.com/en/troubleshooting-polar-h9-h10-heart-rate-sensor?product_id=89452&category=troubleshooting (bottom: "Please provide feedback on our support website". Let me know if you find a better place to report)

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to flocsy🤠

    Re Wahoo and Polar. Ugh. You're right. Sorry. I used to use a Wahoo strap and switched to Polar H10. Yes the docs are ambiguous. I assumed by Descriptive Bit Field they meant the STATUS, but they mean bits 0-3, Coarse Voltage. So I think they are ok there.

    The next apparent inconsistency is that their own Polar Beat smartphone app reports my H10's battery is FULL, while they send 0x03 = OK in the ANT message. So I think your assumption is correct that they send "OK" for NEW and GOOD and OK levels.

    That is fine for my needs. I just want to be aware of when my HR strap drops below the OK level. I hate it when I arrive at an important race or ride and my HR strap dies.

    I wish they would respect the full range of STATUS levels. I might go ahead and report this anyway, in case they might improve their reporting in a F/W update. THANKS AGAIN for all your help! Happy New Year!

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to DaveBrillhart

    It's even more confusing that if you connect the same H10 to the watch by ANT or Bluetooth then Connect IQ will report the battery using a different word. I think that is probably the same "Full" that you see. Are I guess the BT protocol has some similar enum that is called Full :)

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to flocsy🤠

    Thank you! Interesting! I know the batteries last a long time as long as you remove the transmitter from the strap after use. So OK == FULL. It'll be curious to see at what % it flips to the next lower status value. Glad the *level* seems legit.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Today I had a bike ride. I have 2 NewBoler sensors. One that I bought a few month ago and only used less than 10 hours, and one that I bought this week. Interestingly they don't broadcast battery info via ANT but they do on BT. Sadly the older one already reports battery low. I was expecting hundreds of hours - like from a HR strap :( But what's even more interesting is that the new one reports on the Edge as battery: New, however in Garmin Connect both of them are reported as Low...