Consider using PCB trace antenna

[gvdw]

Using a PCB trace antenna instead of the chip antenna would improve the RF performance substantially IMO. I see there's already a part in the library for a printed antenna, was this trialled previously and what were the results?

[eeintech]

@gvdw What are the reasons you would think a PCB trace antenna would work better?

Btw @erictj the next board revision should probably get a controlled impedance antenna path down the chip (using internal ground layer could do). Right now the trace from R24 to the antenna is not referenced to anything. How was the current design validated?

[gvdw]

The specs for the chip antenna used show that peak gain is 2dBi. The PCB trace antenna in the library seems based on this TI app note and has peak gain of 4.5 to 5dBi.

That's a simplistic comparison of course, but it's usually the case that a bigger antenna helps. Chip antennas are almost always compromises as far as gain is concerned, the tradeoff is that making a PCB antenna properly requires some RF expertise and a few prototypes to optimise the performance.