I created my first nRF52832 custom PCB board and I am having issues with poor RF performance. My project uses RSSI to estimate the distance between a peripheral and a central. My custom PCB for the peripheral works well. When using a BLE scanner on my phone, the peripheral can get up to around 30-40 ft away before my phone loses the signal. During this time the RSSI values go between -20 and -100.
However, when I use my custom board for the central, the peripheral can only go about 8ft away before losing connection and the RSSI values start at -55 and lose connection at around -80.
When using the central code on an nrf52 DK board this issue doesn't happen and the RSSI values/range are as expected which leads me to believe there is something wrong with my central board design.
Both the peripheral and central PCBs use the same antenna design/layout. The images presented below are the central PCB.
32.768 Hz (Y1): P/N -> Q13FC1350000400
32 kHz (Y2): Yangxing Tech X322532MOB4SI
I tried to keep the oscillators and the antenna components close to the chip.
This is a two-layer PCB where the fill for both sides is GND. I added an unconnected via near the antenna to create better grounding (not sure if that actually does much).
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
