iPhone R&D preview · metal detection · 2026Private betaMetalDepth 3D
A development preview of a future smart metal-detector companion app with target positioning, multi-frequency signals, 3D depth and soil context.
MetalDepth 3D explores how a future companion app for a smart metal detector could work. The current iPhone build makes the search workflow, signal analysis, 3D view and soil context tangible with clearly labelled simulated data; real detector hardware is not connected yet.
4
simulated measurement frequencies
8
European interface languages
BRO
live soil map through PDOK
3D
interactive depth reconstruction
What it does
Support and feedback through Operations Labs
Questions, ideas or a problem with the TestFlight demo? Email briefing@operationslabs.nl or use the Operations Labs contact form. Mention MetalDepth 3D, your iPhone model and what you were trying to do.
Privacy-conscious development preview
The app has no account, advertising SDK or first-party analytics. Location is used only with permission on the Soil screen and sent to the public PDOK service for the current profile lookup; the app does not store or synchronize it.
ARKit processing stays local
The movement demo uses camera and motion information only on the device to temporarily track the iPhone as a coil proxy. No camera image is shown, stored or transmitted, and no object recognition takes place.
Map context is not a soil measurement
The BRO Soil Map through PDOK provides regional context. A future local Ground Scan and real detector frames remain leading; the current target class, depth, size and frequency response are simulations for workflow feedback.
How we built it
The native iPhone demo separates the future detector stream, local movement reference and public soil context into independent components. This lets the simulated data source be replaced later without rebuilding the whole interface.
Four repeated simulated DD-coil passes build the interface from searching to positioning, signal comparison and a narrower uncertainty band. This tests the information hierarchy, not measurement performance.
Support and privacy questions run through Operations Labs. Contact details you submit there are handled under the general Operations Labs privacy statement; the app itself does not transmit feedback or find data.
Why we built it
The long-term aim is not simply to search deeper, but to understand before digging what is probably in the ground, where its centre is and how uncertain that estimate still is.
The app is made shareable early to learn about navigation, readability and missing field information while hardware, depth and classification claims deliberately wait for reproducible measurements.
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