This article presents a performance analysis of beam‐reconfigurable in/on‐body antennas. Both antennas operated within the Medical Device Radio Communications Service band (MedRadio band: 401–406 MHz) and were designed to steer the beam directions. To implement the beam‐steering capability, the two antennas used two artificial switches. The in/on‐body antennas were fabricated on FR‐4 and fabric substrate, respectively. A skin‐mimicking model (εr = 46.74, σ = 0.69 S m−1) was adopted for the simulations and measurements of the two antennas. We performed transmission and reception tests between in/on‐body antennas in an antenna chamber. The test was implemented in various cases, with different antenna distance and angle values. In addition, we compared received power between the calculated results (by virtue of the Friis transmission equation) and the actual measured results, and summarize these findings herein. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:1163–1169, 2016; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.29750