"Tile Pro" Tracker - Impressive Range

[jumpingfool]

I have recently purchased the newly released "Tile Pro" bluetooth tracker after noticing a number of reviews online were giving good reports in terms of the BLE range.

The device is using the TC35678 from TI connected to an RF amplifier that I've been unable to identify marked X8 OZ4D. It also has a pretty funky looking PCB antenna - you can see it in the FCC report here:

fccid.io/.../Internal-Photos-3495407

They claim battery life of 1 year on a CR2032.

Under test the line of sight range from this device is nearly double that I can achieve from the NRF52 DK. Is this a function of the amplifier, the antenna design or potentially both?

If I move my design to the 52840 with +8db output can I reasonably expect to achieve similar performance in terms of range and battery life, or will an RF amplifier need to be incorporated into the design in order to achieve this?

[endnode]

Yes, I have couple of Ruuvi tags and yes, I've picked the tag from that tower so I can say that nRF52832 with Tx Power set to +4dBm have such performance. Indeed once you have any obstacles (it's enough to walk much closer to the tower but among the trees in the wood on that hill) the story is very different, you will see much lower RSSI or complete drop of packets.

And yes, the antenna design is what can make magic. It's big difference if you have experienced RF engineer who is able to run simulation (in expensive software) before finalizing the PCB and testing then prototypes and adjusting tuning based on actual PCBs received from the factory or if you just get some stock rectangle and put some textbook antenna to it. I'm sure Nordic have this kind of expertise but it's question if it was used or even desired in case of their dev kits.