ANT+ (pronounced "ant-plus") is the wireless protocol that connects fitness sensors like heart rate straps, cadence pods, and power meters to your Garmin watch or bike computer. Introduced in 2004 and owned by Garmin, it became the standard way sports gear from different brands talked to each other. If you own a Garmin or a heart rate strap from the last decade, you have almost certainly used ANT+ without knowing it.
That is the short version. The longer one is that ANT+ is winding down. Garmin ended its ANT+ membership and product certification programs on June 30, 2025, and stopped developing new ANT+ profiles. Everything you already own still works, and it will keep working for years. But almost nothing new is being built on it.
Here is what actually happened, and what it means for the sensors on your shelf.
What ANT+ Actually Does
ANT+ is a low-power wireless protocol built for one job: getting small amounts of data from a sensor to a display, reliably, without draining a coin cell in a week.
Its reputation came from three things. It sips power, it pairs to multiple devices at once, and it works across brands. A heart rate strap from one company could feed a Garmin watch, a Wahoo head unit, and a gym treadmill at the same time, which was genuinely unusual in 2004.
That flexibility is why ANT+ ended up in so many places. Cycling radar like Garmin's Varia used it for real-time vehicle alerts. SRAM's AXS shifting and Shimano's Di2 drivetrains leaned on it for gear position data. Running dynamics from Stryd and muscle oxygen sensors from Moxy still depend on it today.
Why Garmin Pulled the Plug
Two things happened at once.
The first was regulation. The European Union's Radio Equipment Directive started enforcing cybersecurity requirements on August 1, 2025, via delegated regulation 2022/30 and the EN 18031 standards. Any wireless device sold in the EU now needs encryption and authentication built in. ANT+ has encryption as an option, not a default, and forcing it on would break compatibility with millions of devices already in the field. Garmin had to either rebuild a 20-year-old protocol or let it age out.
The second was that the market had already moved. Garmin announced in January 2025 that it would discontinue the ANT+ membership program, the product certification program, and the associated engineering support. That deadline passed on June 30, 2025. No more certification testing, no more new profiles, no more spec development.
Worth being clear about what that does and does not mean, because it gets reported badly. Garmin did not switch ANT+ off. It stopped running the organization that grows it. The protocol still works on every device that has an ANT+ radio, and Garmin has said it will keep supporting existing products.
The ANT+ Timeline in 2026
- 2004: Dynastream Innovations releases ANT, later branded ANT+
- 2006: Garmin acquires Dynastream and takes ownership of the protocol
- 2010s: Peak adoption across cycling, running, and gym equipment
- January 2025: Garmin announces the membership and certification programs will end
- June 30, 2025: ANT+ membership, product certification, and engineering support officially discontinued
- August 1, 2025: EU cybersecurity rules under the Radio Equipment Directive become mandatory for wireless devices
- December 2027: The EU's Cyber Resilience Act takes over from the RED cybersecurity requirements, tightening the rules further
- Today: Existing ANT+ gear works normally. No new profiles are being developed
The practical takeaway: if it worked in 2024, it works now. The clock is on new development, not on your devices.
Why Bluetooth Won
Bluetooth Low Energy closed the gaps that made ANT+ irreplaceable, then kept going.
Power draw was ANT+'s headline advantage, and BLE caught up. Multi-device pairing was the other, and BLE matched it with a limit of seven simultaneous connections. Then it went further, because BLE lives inside every phone already. Fitness apps like Zwift, TrainerRoad, and Strava connect directly to BLE sensors with no dongle, no adapter, and no pairing dance.
ANT+ never had that. Apple never put an ANT+ radio in the iPhone, and Google's Android support was inconsistent enough that developers stopped counting on it. The protocol spent its life being excellent at a job phones were never going to help with.
What This Means for Your Gear Now
Nothing changes today. Your heart rate strap, cadence sensor, power meter, and foot pod keep working with the devices they are paired to.
What does change is what happens at the margins. New firmware updates from Garmin and Wahoo will focus on Bluetooth performance, because that is where the development effort goes. Over time, ANT+ connections are more likely to see occasional dropouts than BLE ones, not because anything was deliberately broken, but because one protocol is getting engineering attention and the other is not.
If you are buying sensors now, buy dual-protocol. Nearly every modern strap and power meter speaks both ANT+ and BLE, and that keeps you compatible with older Garmin and Wahoo head units while future-proofing for whatever comes next. Sensors that dropped ANT+ entirely, like the newer COROS heart rate monitors, tell you which way the wind is blowing.
Cycling Is the Hardest Part
Cycling leans on ANT+ harder than any other sport, and it does not have a clean exit.
Garmin's Varia radar, SRAM's AXS shifting, and Shimano's Di2 drivetrains all use it for real-time communication, and there is no open Bluetooth standard that replaces what they do. Gear position data, radar alerts, and drivetrain integration are gaps Bluetooth has not closed. Power meter makers like 4iiii and Stages have shifted their focus to BLE but still keep ANT+ in the box for older head units.
Gym equipment is going the other way. Peloton and Technogym favor BLE, which is making ANT+ a niche feature on new machines. And Garmin keeping ANT+ in products like the HRM-Pro Plus is a compatibility decision, not a vote of confidence.
Does ANT+ Work with iPhone?
Short answer: no, not natively. Apple has never supported ANT+ in any iPhone. There is no ANT+ radio in the hardware, and no software layer to add it later. If your heart rate strap, power meter, or foot pod is ANT+-only, an iPhone cannot see it directly.
There are two workarounds people use:
- An external ANT+ dongle. Some companies have made Lightning-connected adapters that bridge ANT+ sensors into iOS apps. They work, but they add cost, another piece of hardware to charge or carry, and they have gotten harder to find as the protocol winds down.
- Buy sensors that also speak Bluetooth. This is the real answer now. Nearly every modern sensor is dual-protocol, and the iPhone uses the Bluetooth side. If you are building a setup around an iPhone, buy BLE-capable sensors and skip ANT+ entirely.
The same logic applies to apps like Zwift, TrainerRoad, and Strava on iOS: they expect Bluetooth sensors. ANT+ remains a Garmin-and-Wahoo-first world, and the iPhone was never invited.
ANT+ Not Working? Quick Fixes
If your ANT+ sensor keeps dropping, pairs but sends no data, or won't show up at all, try these in order:
- Re-pair the sensor. Delete it from your device or app and search again. ANT+ re-pairs fast, and this clears stale connection state that causes most dropouts.
- Check the battery. ANT+ sensors sip power, so a dying coin cell often shows up as intermittent dropout before total silence. A fresh CR2032 fixes more ANT+ problems than anything else.
- Move the receiver closer. ANT+ range is shorter than people expect, and the sensor should be within a few feet of the watch or head unit, not across the room.
- Prefer ANT+ over Bluetooth where you can. If a device searches both protocols, delete the Bluetooth pairing so it locks onto ANT+ instead. This is the workaround Garmin Edge users are relying on after the CIRQA firmware bug broke Bluetooth broadcasting.
- Update firmware and apps. Old firmware on either the sensor or the receiving device is a common cause of pairing failures, especially in apps like MyWhoosh where ANT+ support changes between versions.
If the sensor is a newer BLE-only model, ANT+ will never see it at all, which is the direction the whole industry is heading.
The Bottom Line
ANT+ is not dead, and it is not going to be switched off. It is finished as a living standard, which is a different thing. The membership program that grew it closed in June 2025, the EU made its optional-encryption model untenable in August 2025, and Bluetooth had already won the phone.
For you, the answer is simple. Keep using the ANT+ sensors you own, they work fine. Buy dual-protocol sensors from here on, because every new device is being built for Bluetooth first. And if you are deep into cycling electronics, expect the transition to take longer there than anywhere else, because nobody has shipped a Bluetooth replacement for radar and electronic shifting yet.
Sources: Garmin's ANT+ program change notice (thisisant.com), DC Rainmaker's January 2025 analysis of the ANT+ wind-down, the ANT+ membership and certification discontinuation dated June 30, 2025, and the EU Radio Equipment Directive cybersecurity requirements (Delegated Regulation 2022/30, EN 18031) effective August 1, 2025.