Magnets only really work on plasterboard walls with just a skim coat (or taped and filled) so it can get close enough to the metal fixings to stick to them.
I don't think I have tried my zircon on lath and plaster walls or plasterboard with full coat plaster. Is yours still able to find the studs on those?
Magnets also won't detect electrical cable.
And I presume there could be cases in old houses where beneath the plaster there are timbers without ferrous nails in them.
Magnets are working for me for what I have to do just now. But I guess that a meter which detects metal, wood, and cables would be more useful.
As it happens, I was checking through the box where I keep such things, just yesterday. The item is still there, still working, but I could not find a name on it. My best guess is that I picked it up at either Lidl, or Aldi's middle isle.
Try a more sensitive method - tie a rare earth magnet, on the end of a bit of cotton thread. move that around close to a wall, and watch for deviations.
True, but the subject under discussion was finding studs, not cables. (i.e. identifying places you want rather than ones you don't!)
Normally the laths are nailed to the studs - and there will be more of them than in plasterboard since each lath is narrow.
Indeed, well worth having IME.
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