Stud Finder Wall Scanner - 4 in 1 Stud Detector Detector Beam Finders Wall Detector Sensor Center Finding with LCD Display for Wood AC Wire Metal Studs Cable Joist Detection (Stud Finder)

First of all, I wish I had bought this a long time ago. Over the years I have spent the extra money to have things installed by tradespeople, as I was not confident in drilling through walls in fear of hitting electricity cables or weak spots when putting up shelves or TV brackets. Now I have this fantastic little gadget! I am delighted to say this is a very well-built, quality piece of equipment, and YES it comes with a battery too! The item arrived well packed and securely boxed, with simple instructions if needed (to be honest, it is very simple and intuitive to use straight away). I have been testing it around the house, and I can easily 'track' the cables across the walls leading from light switches, plug sockets etc. Since receiving the device, I have already securely installed a TV bracket in the kid's bedroom. The onboard LCD screen is also top quality, bright, easy to read and understand. The centre bar will fill and the audible beep will indicate the presence of any wooden beam, steel girder, electric cable etc. I am already planning my next 3 projects using this device to put up bookshelves and another TV bracket. 10/10 product. Do not be without this Tavool Wall Scanner!

I have bought several of these 'stud/wire' finder' devices over the years. Most are quite disappointing, being so flimsy they break while slubbing around in the tool chest while providing at best very inaccurate returns. I was therefore pleasantly surprized by this unit. It is very solid in the hand and does not feel like it will break at anything but the lightest of touches. The screen is backlit which is more useful than you might imagine when working in dimly lit corners or shaded rooms. Its controls are simple (once you have read the instructions) but reasonably definite, tied to an on-screen interface which is succinct and clear. Rather than simply indicate the general location of a batten/wire/pipe it provides a readout of the hidden structure's edges and also indicates its centre. This is valuable if for instance you are putting up a shelf and need to be sure its brackets are screwed firmly into the middle of a beam. As part of proper usage its chosen detection routine is recalibrated each time you begin a scan. This means the device can be used reliably across a wide range of plaster depths. Indeed, it offers two hardcoded density-detection profiles--one for normal walls and one for those who are heavily coated in plaster. Aside from reading the presence of electrical wire and the density-shift associated with a concealed beam this unit also offers a metal detection feature which can reveal the presence of nails and older water/gas pipes. When combined these features provide an almost unbeatable facility to detect the features which are most commonly hidden within a wall. I found only a couple of negatives. Firstly, the device is perhaps over-sensitive to EMF. To some extent this is understandable since no one wants to accidentally drill or screw into a live electrical wire. If there is even a chance of one in your work area you need to know about it double sharp! However if the device, through an excess of caution is constantly reporting a live wire where you are absolutely certain there can be none present the user could become accustomed to ignore the warning with tragic results--a case of 'the little boy who cried wolf' as it were. Also if you are working in an old, perhaps not well maintained house whose plaster is both thick and damp I found neither of the density-shift detection profiles were entirely reliable. However in those situations it was simple to switch over to the metal-detection routine and effectively 'see' the same data but via a slightly different route. At the end of the day I highly recommend this unit. It is not perfect, but for its price it is very good indeed. I would certainly choose it over any other such 'stud finder' I have used in the past.

A great device especially for those who do a bit of DIY. As a parent, my house tends to evolve every now and again which means that I have to drill holes through the walls occasionally to put things up. In the past whilst drilling, I have come across electric cables or a metal pipe so it's essential that I know what is behind the wall before I start drilling. This is where the wall scanner has been a life saver. It's very easy to use, only has 2 buttons. One to select the mode and the other to start scanning. You simply select the mode (wood, metal, electric etc.), then press the scan button and the device will show bars and continuous beeping if it detects anything behind the surface. Many would agree if you drill into anything unintended, it can be a costly exercise to fix any damages so with the wall scanner there should be no excuse. I live in a new build so most of my walls are plasterboard and works perfectly fine. I haven't really tested this on other surfaces but so far it's been great for me.

This is good for the price, I used it to find wooden beams behind an inside wall for attaching shelving to. I would not fully trust it for detecting electric cables or pipes, as it sometimes said there was wires when there wasn't, obviously you need to be able to trust the tool to tell the facts about that sort of thing. But for finding beams it was ok and is easy to use too.

The stud finder is super sensitive and works well, as long as you test it loads before you try to use in anger. There were a few things that bothered me, one is the shape of it. It really needs to have at least one straight side so that you can run a sprit level along side it. There is a handy grove top and bottom to help ideifty centre , so any mark you make can be in line but this wasn’t flush with the wall surface so introduced parallax error when marking the wall with a pencil. It’s sensitivity also took a bit of getting used to. If your fingers are too near the wall then they produce false readsings. I tested it on my table top first. So I could see the and feel where the beams of wood were under the table top. Once I valerbrated it I found it worked really well. In summary Great value. Detected electricity near where I wanted to work. Came with 9v battery included! For this price ... fantastic

The pros: Arrived safely and on time, battery included, simple clear instructions, easy to use. The cons: Doesn't work. I live in a modern flat with plasterboard stud walls. Easy to find a stud or hollow section of wall by tapping with my knuckles. Calibrated as per the instructions (I read them twice to make sure I was doing it properly), set to stud finder mode and placed on hollow wall - no signal, as expected. Moved it along the wall to find a stud, it told me there was a stud - knocked on the wall and it sounded hollow. I gave it the benefit of the doubt - recalibrated and tried another section of wall - stud finder beeped - definitely hollow when knocking. Tried a section of wall that sounded hollow, immediately told me there was a stud. In fact, according to this stud finder the whole wall was made of studs! I recalibrated multiple times as per the instructions and each time got different results, sometimes on the same section of wall. Tried it on wire mode - constantly beeped at places that made no sense. I suppose wires could be anywhere behind the walls, so I tried it on a door jam (definitely no wires here) and it told me there was a wire. Bottom line: Unreliable, which (in my opinion) makes it dangerous, especially if looking for wires. I have already arranged a return. I think it's worth spending a bit extra to get something I can rely on - lesson learned!

Have done some testing with known pipes, studs and wires to get the hang of it before venturing on to walls/floors unknown. Purpose is to find pipes under floorboards before I screw down any creaking boards, prior to carpeting. You calibrate it by holding in the air, away from any sources and pressing a button. I found this initial calibration left it too sensitive and it would say a metal pipe was several inches wide, this was great for finding things and would find things that were quite deep. When the bars were almost at the top I re-calibrated it and then it started to actually show the form of the pipe. In one known area there were 3 pipes next to each other, large, small, large. You could actually see this on the display as for the two large pipes the display peaked and beeped and for the smaller pipe it almost made it to the top – with a drop in the middle of each pipe. So I’d say this looks to be an excellent tool. Once you’ve got the hang of calibrating it to refine the exact position it works excellently and hopefully will pay for itself many times over by not screwing into pipes!

The product itself is easy to use and easy to figure out. The instructions are relatively clear, although with grammatical errors. Diagrams of the product within the instructions are less clear to decipher readings from. The product seems fairly accurate although, following the instructions to the letter, when looking for active wires, I've had three different results returned from scanning the same spot of a bathroom wall. Another spot of the flat, this product returns a very different result to the wire scanner I had previously leaving me a little shaken in confidence. That being said...I haven't hit any live wires yet!