Cockpit tech: ANT+ Power meter → Android phone?

Question

Has anybody had any success getting ANT+ only equipment to talk to Android apps?

I’m only talking about a situation in which the Android phone specifically has ANT+ capabilities; obviously if there’s no ANT+ radio it would be idiotic to expect it to happen.

This might be the wrong SE to ask a question like this, since it’s not so much about cycling per se but about data-exchange-protocol interoperability… I just figured that somewhere out there, someone else will have encountered the issue.

The background below lays out the main details.

Background

So I recently bought a set of wheels with a CycleOps PowerTap Elite+ hub, as a (relatively) cheap alternative to buying pedal- or crank-based power meter. My current bike has "near-vintage" Dura-Ace 7700 throughout – including pedals and cranks – and I didn’t really want to switch anything out.

I knew that the hub was ANT+-only (no BLE), but I have an ANT+ dongle (for my PC, for Zwift) and my phone purports to have an ANT+ Radio Service and an ANT+ plugin manager. An ANT+ testing app claims that the phone has all the appropriate ANT+ functionality (HAL; Radio; USB; Plugins).

My phone detects the ANT+ ID of a bunch of Wahoo, Garmin, and other devices (e.g., speed and cadence sensors), but they are all dual ANT/BLE and they always connect using BLE.

When Zwift starts on my phone there’s a little ANT+ icon next to the Bluetooth icon, and both are pulsating.

Same for the PC, except that on the PC Zwift usually connects to speed and cadence meters – and my KickR – using ANT+ rather than BT.

When I first put the wheels on, I tried to pair them with the Wahoo android app, but the app didn’t find them. Nor did Zwift, on either phone or PC – despite the pulsating ANT+ icon.

My Garmin Edge 500 found the wheels no problem, but I hate the lack of screen real-estate on Garmins – I have terrible eyesight and pretty awful on-bike coordination, so trying to switch screens by button-pressing is a recipe for an ironic death… give me a 6.5" screen and swipe-changes and I’m less likely to die.

Plus uploading to Strava from an Edge 500 is a GPITA (Gigantic Pain In The … Aorta), whereas from Zwift or Wahoo it.just.happens. The lack of screen and awkward functionality rules out, e.g., getting a cheap used Edge 510.

I would really like for my phone to be able to ‘see’ my PowerTap hub, without getting the hub upgraded to ANT/BLE – assuming that’s still possible. It used to be possible, and might still be; I’ve seen one ebay ad for the ‘Powercap’ (which fits all G3 & GS Hubs including Pro and Elite model hubs that have been upgraded to the G3 style cap – that has stopped me from pulling the trigger until I work out what this ‘upgrade’ to the cap entails; the cap’s just a threaded bit of plastic).