Digital Wall Scanner with Modes for Wood, Metal, and AC Wiring

I does work but i thought it was going to be the real deal. For the price. Unfortunately it doesn't but I will keep it because it its better than others

This easy-to-use stud/metal/wire finder is great for the thick drywall/plaster in my house and works much better than the cheaper electronic ones I have used in the past. At the end of this review is a link to a demonstration video I made. Most of my 1950s home's walls have drywall coated in plaster and are about 1" thick is most spots so non-electronic and electronic stud finders never worked too well. Remodeled areas of my home also have the standard 5/8" or 1/2" thick drywall and 3/4" thick wood paneling which I use this mostly successfully on. I also used this successfully to detect copper and galvanized pipes behind cement board/tile and to find rebar in cement. It can detect steel as deep as 4.75" in the wall, wood up to 1.5" and wires up to 2". Using it around the house, I find it works better in the thick walls and wood paneling, especially for finding live wires. In the standard thickness drywalled walls, it does not find electrical wires well but it does find studs and plumbing well. The only downside to this detector is I cannot get it to consistently find electric wires behind 1/2" or 5/8" drywall which is standard on most homes. In most cases, it will not detect them at all but does give a reading sometimes. This is probably due to the finder only being able to detect wires up to 2" deep in the wall. Sometimes wires are not within 2" of the drywall surface. It also cannot detect studs well behind wood paneling which is not surprising. I find it pretty user-friendly, just turn it on, set your mode (wood, metal, electrical) then place it on the wall and give it a second to calibrate. Afterwards, start searching. It will alert you to whatever mode you have it set on with a bar gauge. When you have it on wood mode, it will also alert you to metal and wires which is convenient. It makes noises as you get closer (you can turn the sound off, it is a bit irritating). When you find the center of a stud, pipe or wire, the finder has a convenient holes you can stick a pencil through the mark it. It seems to find wood with the assistance of finding screws/nails and overall, I find its best to scan up and down to find the exact position of the stud, pipe or wire. You probably wont get the exact location on the first bullseye. The finder also has a backlight for the screen when using in dark areas. The finder comes with a 9v battery, carrying case and directions as well. The directions take a little reading. Overall, this is great for finding studs and pipes but 4/5 stars for the general inability to find electrical behind standard thickness drywall. 5 stars for versatility and ease of use. I thought about knocking it down a star for general failure to detect wiring but its scan range for wiring is limited as stated. Overview and demonstration: https://youtu.be/nlW0wfVhoVo

I had just remodeled my bathroom so I knew where all the studs and electrical was located. It worked great to find the studs. The display showed where the center was clearly. It even has a hole to mark on the wall. But I tried the electrical setting and it found the live wires sometimes and sometimes not. I even tried it over exposed wires and it didn't sound off. Overall, it worked great for wood, not so great for electrical. I didn't have an occasion to try it on steel setting.

I was frustrated buying cheap, throw-away stud finders that never seem to work when you need one, so I stepped up to the Bosch GMS120 Professional Wall Scanner. It comes with a nice flexible storage case with hand lanyard and belt loop. Using this wall scanner is not intuitive and requires reading the instructions thoroughly. There are multi-colored flashing lights, changing bar graphs, symbols and sounds that requires prior working knowledge to use properly. The instruction pamphlet would benefit from better graphics and illustrations. The scanner has three modes; wood, metal or live electrical. In the wood mode it actually scans for all three, and will display the various signals and graphs on the display. It also identifies the center point of wood studs or metal objects. Selecting metal mode excludes wood and scans for only ferrous/non ferrous metals and “live” electrical wires. It is important to note that the scanner detects wires where current is flowing. The warning light may not flash for wires that have no current draw. The Bosch GMS120 performed very well in all three modes during my testing and use. As recommended in the instructions, I used a thin piece of cardboard over the uneven ceiling texture, and it detected the joists perfectly. Now I don’t have to drill and patch holes in the ceiling when looking for the joists. The scanner could be more user friendly with better graphics in the display, but it’s still a giant leap above the cheap stud finders.

This is a costly, but not useful. Misses all electrical stuff. Can't distinguish between duct and stud. Will not recommend buying it

Love it. It’s pretty accurate. Just what I needed.

Very accurate and easy to use

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

It will work on walls and floors; not much use on a roof.

I find it's a little unreliable with studs and is less sensitive than a cheaper one I have for detecting hidden live wire, but one must also understand how it works. They all have a temperament and you can do experiments to figure out how it works best before starting to rely on it. It is handy that it has so many features, like tracing copper pipe which isn't terrible. That all said, for what I do get out of it, I feel it could have been priced a little lower considering it performance. I'd pay a little more for more accuracy.