Orbit Lab — version 1.3 and later

Protocol 1 · published 1 August 2026

Orbit Lab is Orbit Drop's free, on-device way to practise and track visual response, anticipation, precision, consistency and response control. It is designed for comparison with your own earlier sessions under the same conditions—not for comparison with strangers or different phones.

Important: Orbit Lab tracks performance in Orbit Drop on this device. Practice can improve these tasks, but results are not a medical assessment and do not predict performance in driving, sport or everyday life. Results can vary with device, settings, fatigue, attention and playing conditions.

Why repetition can help

Practice gives the nervous system repeated chances to connect a visible event with a precise action. Accurate, immediate feedback lets the next attempt be adjusted. Improvement is usually specific to the task being practised; broad claims about general intelligence or real-world reflexes are not justified by an in-game result.

Notice → Predict or decide → Tap → Receive feedback → Adjust

Early gains may slow into plateaus. Rest, variation and progressively more demanding practice can matter. Orbit Drop therefore reports trends over time instead of declaring improvement from one unusually good reading.

The two checks

Reaction Check measures the time from an unpredictable visual cue to touch-down, alongside consistency, false starts and misses.
Timing Check measures how early or late a tap lands as a moving orb reaches a gate at balanced speeds and directions. It reports absolute precision, observed bias, consistency and control.

The checks use fixed protocol conditions. Paid themes, difficulty, internet availability, run entries and arcade speed rules do not change a Lab check. Timed checks show no ads. Eligible banners return on the Lab hub and result screens unless Remove Ads is owned.

How a personal trend is formed

The first three valid sessions on three different local days establish a baseline, with at least 12 hours between contributing sessions. A trend uses the latest three eligible, compatible sessions after that baseline, and those same three must span at least 336 hours (two weeks). Response speed is never called improved if control or consistency deteriorates beyond the declared safeguards.

Device display and touch latency are part of an observed reading. A material device, iOS, refresh-rate or input-profile change starts a new baseline instead of mixing readings that are not directly comparable.

Privacy

Raw trials, summaries, baselines, the response profile, measurement profile, training schedule and reminder state stay in the app container. Orbit Drop does not send them to the developer, AdMob, Game Center, analytics or notifications. The app container may be included in an Apple-managed device backup according to your system settings. See the full privacy policy.

Evidence boundary

The design follows the conservative conclusion that task-specific and closely related gains are more defensible than broad cognitive or real-world transfer. For further reading, see research on task-specific transfer, the limits of broad transfer, and mobile-device timing variability.