Bluetooth stands out as the top choice among wireless technologies for low-power, short-range applications in the realm of the Internet of Things (IoT). Double inverted F antenna (DIFA) as a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) receiver also known as scanner is proposed in this paper for monitoring and sensing applications. The proposed DIFA enables real-time monitoring of cow health. The proposed receiver antenna continuously receives the data from the transmitting device which includes the accelerometer sensor tied on the neck of the cow and then sends the received data to the cloud, thus, can quickly identify any anomalies or signs of distress in individual cows or the entire herd. The proposed DIFA is simulated using Ansys High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS). It operates within the frequency range of 2.40–2.50 GHz, featuring resonant frequency of 2.45 GHz. It possesses −36.23 dB return loss, 4.08% bandwidth percentage and 1.7 dBi gain. Furthermore, comparative analysis has been conducted to assess the enhanced performance of the proposed DIFA with defected ground structure (DGS) in comparison to the DIFA without DGS. Fabrication of the proposed DIFA with DGS technique has been done on FR4 substrate with size of 106 mm \(\times \) 40 mm and the measured results closely match the simulated findings. Moreover, proposed DIFA is subjected to testing in both indoor and outdoor environments, confirming its functionality in the far field.