ANT Forum

I want to use ANT as a Zigbee replacement (I like the acheivable density in ANT better than Zigbee's), but the profiles seem to be quite confining (I understand the interoperabilty reasons)...

If you choose a profile, do you have to support all of its features?
Ideally, I'd like to super-size the environment profile to have:
1. Temperature (already included)
2. RH
3. Light Level (lumens)
4. Light Control (on/off/dim)
5. KWh used / reset
6. Replacement ETA
7. Efficiency (not sure what the best way for that would be)
8. Grouping heirarchy (some way to tag the sensors; eg, these 4 nodes are ConfRoom, these 4 are Franks office).
9. Occupancy
etc.

I wouldn't want to support everything on every device, but I would like to be able to "runtime configure" the sensor so the device would report "Current RH is 55%" instead of a meaningless value like "Sensor 1 = 55%"

What would the best way to implement a flexible profile?      

Hi thormj,

Thanks for your question! It's an interesting use case that you are proposing .

There are several ways you could approach this, and which you choose depends on a few factors:

1. Do you want these sensors to form part of an interoperable network, or is a proprietary solution ok with you?
2. How much support do you need to develop this?

If you want to go the interoperable route, and/or you would like to work with us to develop a profile that would address this use case, then you would need to become an ANT+ Alliance member, and we could do that.This is because we have limited resources, and developing profiles is a substantial task. As an Alliance Member you also get access to any device profiles currently in beta release.

If interoperability doesn't matter for you, then you can create your own network and define how and when to send all the data as you need it. You can do this just using ANT and can ignore all the ANT+ profiles. If you choose this route then you should use the Public network key or apply for a private network key. (The ANT+ key is reserved for ANT+ devices only.)

Finally, if you would like your device to be as interoperable as possible without becoming a member then you could:
- Use the existing environment device profile to send temperature, and use common page 84 to also send % humidity. This channel can be on the ANT+ network.
-Use a separate channel to send the rest of the information on either the public or private networks.
- The grouping of nodes that you talk about sounds like an application for shared channels, so application note AN07 Auto Shared Channel Master Example could be helpful. (See the downloads page)


Thanks,

Kat      

Kat Kent - 04 December 2012 11:49 AM

Hi thormj,

1. Do you want these sensors to form part of an interoperable network, or is a proprietary solution ok with you?
2. How much support do you need to develop this?

If you want to go the interoperable route, and/or you would like to work with us to develop a profile that would address this use case, then you would need to become an ANT+ Alliance member, and we could do that.This is because we have limited resources, and developing profiles is a substantial task. As an Alliance Member you also get access to any device profiles currently in beta release.

If interoperability doesn't matter for you, then you can create your own network and define how and when to send all the data as you need it. You can do this just using ANT and can ignore all the ANT+ profiles. If you choose this route then you should use the Public network key or apply for a private network key. (The ANT+ key is reserved for ANT+ devices only.)

Finally, if you would like your device to be as interoperable as possible without becoming a member then you could:
- Use the existing environment device profile to send temperature, and use common page 84 to also send % humidity. This channel can be on the ANT+ network.
-Use a separate channel to send the rest of the information on either the public or private networks.
- The grouping of nodes that you talk about sounds like an application for shared channels, so application note AN07 Auto Shared Channel Master Example could be helpful. (See the downloads page)

Most helpful, thanks. From the website, it looked like you were able to get to the profile working groups upon registering a dev kit, but from my conversations with Nordic about the topic -- the "Register a dev kit" is for Dynastream only, and it looks like (eventually) I'll need to become an ANT+ member... quite doable once we get everything off the ground, but I'm strapped for cash at the moment.

I'll take a look at AN07 and the environment profiles to see what I can do to make my device ANT+ in spirit, if not quite in actuallity.
     

Any progress with this? It is the right way to inject ANT+ technology to replace others, such as ZigBee or proprietary radios.

--Rasit