I got a new phone a few weeks ago, a Galaxy S23. I was surprised to discover that Samsung has stopped supporting ANT out of the box. I added a ANT dongle on the end of a USB-C adapter cable, installed the ANT+ drivers, and assumed everything would be like it was before. But it isn’t. If anyone can throw light on the problem I’d be grateful.
My previous phone was an ancient Galaxy S7. ANT+, and TR just worked on it. With the new S23 I have huge difficulty getting the TR app to control the Kickr over ANT+. For reasons not relevant to this discussion, I need to use ANT+ instead of Bluetooth to connect the TR app to the Kickr.
What happens is this. Kickr turned on, ANT dongle attached to the phone, Bluetooth disabled on the phone. Start the TR app. Wait a few seconds. No devices connected. Go into “Devices” on the TR app, see HR strap (Garmin) and Kickr listed as “pairing” but nothing happens. The Kickr is listed as “ANT+ trainer”. Sometimes I can actually see the power value from the Kickr, but TR does not control it.
I can tap into the Kickr settings on the TR app, tell it to forget the Kickr, let it re-pair, and then I get the green frame but it still doesn’t control the Kickr.
I play around with combinations of power cycling the Kickr, putting the phone into and out of airplane mode (to clear the ANT+ drivers), re-pairing the Kickr, restarting the TR app. After periods of up to 15 minutes of this it will suddenly start working, and continues to work for the session.
A few observations:
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Despite having bluetooth disabled, and clicking “OK” on a warning about this from the TR app, I get a popup from TR during the ANT+ connection attempts that bluetooth needs location permissions. Seems a bit odd.
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It seems to me (I could be wrong) that when the Kickr connects correctly and is controllable it is listed in the TR devices as “Kickr Core”, but when it is not controllable it is listed as “ANT+ Trainer”.
Any suggestions? Is this a TR app problem, or a S23 ANT+ problem?
again for my next phone.