Pushing Antenna Boundaries in the New Nordic Semi Thingy:91X Cellular Platform

Developing multi-radio IoT devices has always been a complex challenge. Achieving the perfect balance between size, power consumption, and connectivity performance demands precise RF engineering—especially when integrating cellular, GNSS, and Bluetooth/Wi-Fi into a compact form factor.

The Nordic Thingy:91X is the latest battery-operated cellular IoT prototyping platform, designed to streamline development while offering industry-leading connectivity across LTE-M, NB-IoT, GNSS, and Bluetooth LE/Wi-Fi. 

By integrating Ignion’s Virtual Antenna® technology, the Thingy:91X showcases how small a multi-radio IoT device can be while still delivering outstanding RF performance. The platform features three cutting-edge Ignion antenna components—TRIO mXTEND™, DUO mXTEND™, and NANO mXTEND™—each optimized for seamless multi-radio operation. 

The Thingy:91X is built for rapid IoT development, enabling seamless testing of cellular and location-based applications with robust connectivity and sensor integration. 

🚀 Standout Features: 

✅ Multi-radio support – LTE-M/NB-IoT/NR+/NTN*, GNSS, Bluetooth LE, and Wi-Fi. 

✅ Global certification – FCC (USA), CE (EUR). 

✅ Wi-Fi locationing powered by the nRF7002 companion IC. 

✅ Full suite of environmental sensors – temperature, humidity, air quality, and magnetometer. 

✅ Low-power accelerometers and IMU for motion tracking. 

✅ Rechargeable Li-Po battery (1350 mAh) for extended prototyping. 

✅ Expandable via Qwiic, STEMMA QT, and Grove connectors. 

The Thingy:91X’s versatility enables a wide range of IoT applications: 

✅ Asset Tracking & Logistics – Real-time tracking via GNSS, cellular, and Wi-Fi positioning with cloud integration for fleet management. 

✅ Smart Cities & Infrastructure – Monitor air quality, environmental conditions, and urban mobility with low-power sensors. 

✅ Predictive Maintenance & Industrial IoT – Track machine health, vibrations, and environmental parameters for real-time analytics and preventive maintenance. 

✅ Wearables & Medical Devices – Measure motion, environmental exposure, and health metrics while ensuring long battery life. 

While the Thingy:91X excels in connectivity, integrating multiple radios into a single compact design poses significant RF engineering challenges. Traditional antenna solutions require: 

🚫 Large PCB real-estate, and large separation between antennas to avoid coupling,

🚫 Multiple hardware iterations before getting it right,

🚫 Careful tuning to minimize interference between cellular, GNSS, and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth.

Without an innovative antenna solution, these challenges can limit wireless range, slow development & certification, increase power consumption, and reduce reliability. 

To solve these RF integration hurdles, Nordic Semiconductor selected Ignion’s Virtual Antenna® technology, offering a revolutionary approach to compact and high-performance antenna design. 

✔ Enables ultra-small form factors without compromising RF performance.

✔ Optimizes multi-radio operation, ensuring strong signal quality across all bands.

✔ Provides flexible tuning, allowing developers to optimize performance without hardware modifications.

✔ Accelerates certification and compliance, ensuring seamless RF integration.

The Thingy:91X integrates three Ignion antenna solutions—TRIO mXTEND™ for cellular, DUO mXTEND™ for GNSS and Bluetooth, and NANO mXTEND™ for additional compact wireless performance. By demonstrating how Ignion’s Virtual Antenna® solutions support high-performance RF in a miniaturized device, the Thingy:91X proves that IoT designs can be smaller, yet still deliver reliable, multi-radio connectivity.

With Thingy:91X, developers can prototype IoT applications instantly. But how can they ensure top-tier RF performance before finalizing hardware design?

This is where Ignion’s Oxion™ platform plays a crucial role.

🔹 Step 1: Explore Thingy:91X Capabilities – Use Thingy91X as a reference to validate multi-radio performance before moving to a custom design.

🔹 Step 2: Feasibility Study with Oxion™ – Run a feasibility analysis on Oxion™ to simulate antenna performance for your PCB layout and device requirements.

🔹 Step 3: Seamless Transition to Custom Design – Once feasibility is confirmed, integrate Virtual Antenna® technology into your custom hardware, ensuring fast and reliable RF performance.

By leveraging Thingy:91X as a testbed and Oxion™ for design validation, IoT innovators can drastically reduce development time and bring multi-radio devices to market faster.

With Thingy:91X, Nordic Semiconductor and Ignion have pushed the boundaries of compact multi-radio connectivity. Now, any developer can test and validate their designs without the complexity of custom RF solutions. 

🔹 Test your design on Oxion™ → Try it now 

🔹 Learn more about TRIO mXTEND™ → Discover TRIO mXTEND™ 

🔹 Get the Thingy:91X → Buy from Nordic 

The future of seamless IoT connectivity is smaller, smarter, and more efficient than ever.  

*Currently covers LTE-M/NB-IoT 698-960 + 1710-2200 MHz and NTN S-band