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How to choose ANT+ over Bluetooth with dual sensors

I have a Viiiva HRM and now a PowerTap P1 PM that both have Bluetooth and ANT+ wireless. I really want to use the ANT+ on both devices but the 1030 only defaults to Bluetooth. Since I haven't figured out how to turn off the Bluetooth I can't connect with ANT+. The P1 is especially important because I don't see left/right power balance when using Bluetooth.

Any ideas?
  • The BLE signal is often detected by the Edge first when pairing. It can take a little longer for the ANT pairing to to show up.

    If you are currently paired to the sensor over BLE. Go down to the sensor details and untoggle the enabled setting so that the Edge will not pair with it. Then do a new search for the sensor type you want. The Edge should then show the ANT option for that sensor as the BLE option is already in the sensor pool and disabled.
  • Thanks so much. Now I can't wait to get home and give that a try. Makes sense. I had been waiting forever to see if both BLE and ANT+ would show up so I could select the ANT+, but it never did.
  • Strange, they should both show up, but you might need to do refresh of the search.
  • The BLE signal is often detected by the Edge first when pairing. It can take a little longer for the ANT pairing to to show up.

    If you are currently paired to the sensor over BLE. Go down to the sensor details and untoggle the enabled setting so that the Edge will not pair with it. Then do a new search for the sensor type you want. The Edge should then show the ANT option for that sensor as the BLE option is already in the sensor pool and disabled.


    Well that did the trick. Data looks good. Thanks so much.
  • I have a new Stages L power meter that is paired via BLE. Is there even any reason I would want to use ANT+ instead?
  • The BLE specification for power meters is not as mature as that of the ANT+ specification so does not support a lot of the features that ANT+ does. For a single sided power meter such as Stages at that does not support many of these features it should not make much difference.

    The only issue I have seen reported here with using Stages over BLE is getting false low battery warnings.

    One other consideration is that unlike ANT+ which supports a many-to-many network topology most BLE implementationa only support having one device paired to the BLE sensor at a time. So if you wanted the Edge paired to Stages over BLE and also Zwift paired to Stages over BLE you could not do that.
  • I have a new Stages L power meter that is paired via BLE. Is there even any reason I would want to use ANT+ instead?


    One thing I noticed is that the power is much more 'cleaner' from ANT+ vs BLE. I was using my 520 connected to ANT+ and my 1030 connected to BLE (before I changed it to ANT+) and while on my trainer, I noticed the power numbers jumping around even with 3 second averaging. After I finished my ride and looked at the data, I could see so much variation in the power on BLE vs ANT+. I'm fairly sure that shouldn't happen since I was riding in ERG mode on my Kickr so the power really shouldn't fluctuate that much. Total power was just a couple of watts lower on BLE which isn't a big deal, but the variations was really bothersome when I'm trying to hold consistent power.

    Once I got the 1030 connected by ANT+ the power was much more stable just like when using the 520.
  • which one is ant+ and which one is bluetooth? one side has "stages 78909" and the other just 90856

  • ANT will generally show up as just a number.

    BTLE shows up with a name.

  • Thanks mate. I think something is stuffed. It finds the left side on ant + but not the right. It finds both on Bluetooth but both won’t calibrate.