• Improved battery level reporting

• Improved battery charging indicator reporting

• Added support for orientation tenths as a feature

This can happen even with no wind and no movement. It’s one of the more confusing behaviors because nothing looks wrong, but the elevation continues to shift.

The Delta system measures elevation using barometric pressure, and that pressure is affected by temperature. When the temperature changes from what it was at the time of zeroing, your elevation readings can begin to shift away from that zero point.

The good news is this is predictable and manageable once you know what to look for.

Thermal drift typically shows up as:

• A slow, steady change in elevation, away from zero

• Movement that isn’t tied to wind or machine motion

• Readings that continue to shift even when everything seems stable

There are a few common ways this happens in the field:

1. Changing ambient temperature over time
As the temperature rises or falls throughout the day, drift can begin to appear. Faster or larger temperature swings will create more noticeable movement.

2. Sun and shade differences
If one Delta is in the sun while others are in the shade, they will heat at different rates. This is one of the fastest ways to introduce drift, and it can become noticeable in just a couple of minutes.

This can also happen over time as the sun moves and changes the conditions of your setup.

3. Units not fully acclimated
If Deltas are brought from one environment to another (like from an air-conditioned shop into summer heat), they need time to equalize. Generally 15 minutes will do the trick unless the temperatures are drastically different, then give your Deltas a few extra minutes.

Turning them on also generates heat inside the case, so allowing time before zeroing is important.

A smaller but common scenario

Even normal operation can introduce small temperature differences.

Driving in and out of sun and shade can slightly change the temperature of the primary unit. When returning to your working position, give the system a moment to settle before checking grade.

How to reduce thermal drift

In most cases, thermal drift can be minimized with a few simple setup habits:

• Keep all Deltas in the same sun or shade conditions

• Avoid partial transitions (one unit moving into a different sun or shade condition than the others)

• Allow time for Deltas to acclimate before zeroing

• Re-check conditions as the day progresses

What to do when it happens

Thermal drift can be quickly corrected by re-zeroing.

Before doing that, identify what caused the drift and correct it if possible. Otherwise, the drift will continue after you re-zero.

We are working on a factory performed calibration that should help alleviate the impact of thermal drift in an upcoming firmware update.

The Delta system works by comparing pressure between units. When those units are experiencing similar conditions, noise gets canceled out and readings stay stable. When conditions don’t match, that difference shows up as movement in your elevation readings.

The card below shows what good and bad placement looks like. The top row is what you’re aiming for. The bottom row is what creates problems. The goal is to keep all Deltas in consistent conditions.

One more factor to consider

The card focuses on wind, obstacles, and height because those are the most visible and common sources of instability.

There is one more factor to keep in mind: temperature exposure (sun and shade).

Deltas can begin to thermally drift when they are heating or cooling at different rates. This can happen quickly. For example, if all units are in the shade and one moves into direct sun, you may start to see drift in under a minute.

Because of this, when you’re setting up, it’s important to treat sun and shade the same way you would wind or obstacles. Keep all Deltas in similar conditions.

Common placement issues we see

• One unit in sun while others are shaded

• Anchors set at different heights to make placement easier

• One unit exposed to wind while another is shielded

• Obstacles affecting only part of the setup

Adaptive Filtration can smooth out short-term noise from wind and turbulence, but it won’t fix inconsistent placement.

If you’ve found a setup that works well in tough conditions, share it below. Real-world setups are some of the most helpful ways to help others dial in their systems.

-Rebecca

• Continued improvement to standby time

• Cleanup to battery reporting in anticipation of an upcoming app release which will more transparently show battery state

When you’re running a Delta system in the field, each Delta can experience slightly different conditions depending on placement and what’s happening on the job site.

The system measures elevation change through barometric pressure. Air pressure is constantly shifting due to air movement and temperature, and because the Deltas are spaced apart, each one can see slightly different pressure at any given moment.

When the Deltas are experiencing the same conditions, they agree with each other and that shared signal cancels out. What’s left is the actual elevation difference from your zero point.

When they are not seeing the same thing, that difference shows up as fluctuation in your readings, most commonly from wind and turbulent air.

That’s why readings tend to be more stable in calm conditions, and more active in turbulent air.

This is where Adaptive Filtration comes in.

How Adaptive Filtration helps

With Adaptive Filtration, each filter setting introduces a time window that allows the system to continuously look at how the readings have been changing over that period before updating what you see to remove higher frequency noise.

Wind and turbulent air tend to show up as higher frequency noise, which is why increasing the filter level helps stabilize the readout in those conditions. As conditions get more turbulent, stepping up the filter level helps reduce fluctuation and maintain a more consistent readout.

Movement from the primary shows up differently. The weather anchors do not see that movement, so it is not something that can be canceled out. It comes through as a real elevation change relative to your zero point.

Each step up in filtering increases that window:

• Off = no delay (instant response)

• Calm = 5 seconds

• Each level adds another 5 seconds

• Heavy Wind = 25 seconds

What that means for your readings

With lighter filtering, the system reacts quickly, but you’ll see more elevation fluctuation in more turbulent conditions.

With heavier filtering, the elevation reading becomes more consistent, but it takes longer to reflect changes.

Best practices

All Earthwork projects start in Calm, which applies a 5 second delay and gives you a solid baseline for most conditions.

If conditions are stable, you can turn filtering Off for instant response.
If readings are moving around, step up the filter until things become stable.

When zeroing, give the system time to reflect the current conditions before setting your baseline. Zeroing too early means you’re locking in a value that hasn’t fully caught up yet. For example, if you’re in Heavy Wind mode, you’ll want to wait the full 25 seconds after placing your implement before checking grade.

Placement still matters. Adaptive Filtration helps in rough conditions, but it won’t fix a poor setup. Anchors that are exposed to different conditions or environments are less likely to stay aligned with each other, which leads to more disagreement in the system.

One thing Adaptive Filtration does not address is thermal drift. If elevation is slowly changing while everything else looks stable, that’s temperature. Let the system acclimate, check to ensure Deltas are all in shade or sun, and re-zero when needed.

If you’ve had a chance to try Adaptive Filtration, I’d love to hear how it’s working for you. Feel free to share what you’re seeing in the field or ask your questions below.

-Rebecca

P.S. Download the Adaptive Filtration card here if you don't have a copy yet.

Delta connects over a 2.4 gigahertz Wi‑Fi network. Many routers also broadcast a 5 gigahertz network, which is faster for everyday use but not always compatible during setup. If your phone is connected to 5 gigahertz, Delta may fail to connect.

If you’re having trouble, check which network your phone is using and switch to 2.4 gigahertz if needed. If both networks share the same name, moving closer to your router or temporarily disabling 5 gigahertz can help.

If you’d rather skip Wi‑Fi entirely or just want a more direct path, you can use the Delta Rescue Tool.

Download the version for your computer (Windows or Mac) here: https://dirtydevices.com/pages/downloads

Unsure if your Mac is Intel or ARM64?

1. Click the Apple logo () in the top-left corner

2. Click “About This Mac”

3. Look for one of these:

• If it says “Chip: Apple M1 / M2 / M3…” → you have ARM64 (Apple Silicon)

• If it says “Processor: Intel…” → you have an Intel Mac

After downloading:

• On Windows, open the file and run the application

• On Mac, drag the app into your Applications folder, then open it

Once launched, connect your Delta with a USB‑C cable and follow the on-screen instructions. Keep the device plugged in and powered on until the update completes.

Repeat this process for each Delta.

To confirm each Deltas firmware version:

• Open the Dirty Devices app on your mobile device

• Connect your Delta

• Tap and hold the device icon on the My Deltas screen

• Check the firmware version on the control panel (should read 2.0.0 (169))

Once you’re on version 2.0.0 (169), future updates won’t require Wi‑Fi.

If you run into any issues, reach out to us at support@dirtydevices.com. We are happy to help!

-Rebecca

This one has been a long time coming, and there’s a lot to unpack.

The version of the firmware currently in the wild, v1, has some real limitations. We’ve seen them ourselves, and we’ve heard them from you in the field. Issues with WiFi, firmware updates, connectivity, hardware integration, and handling wind and temperature changes during activities all made it clear that we had more work to do. Just as importantly, the way v1 was built made it harder for us to cleanly solve some of those issues.

v2 is a ground-up rebuild of the firmware. In some cases, it directly solves major pain points. In others, it lays the foundation for us to keep improving the system much more effectively moving forward.

It’s also important to mention that this update applies to all Delta versions already in the field.

Firmware Updates

With v2, we are officially moving forward with our new over-the-air update system.

You’ll still use WiFi one last time to get onto v2, but once your kit is updated, it will begin using the new OTA system going forward. The new OTA system no longer relies on WiFi configuration on the Deltas themselves. Instead, your phone downloads firmware updates over WiFi through the mobile app, and then the app streams those updates to each Delta over Bluetooth.

This only happens when your phone is on WiFi, so it won’t consume your mobile data. Once the update is downloaded to the phone, it transfers silently in the background whenever the app is open and you do not have a project running. If a project starts while a transfer is in progress, the transfer pauses and automatically resumes as soon as the project is closed.

Firmware updates are small and should generally take about 2 to 3 minutes per Delta to transfer. Once the update has been sent to each Delta and everything is ready, the app will show a banner letting you know the update can be applied. Tapping Apply will trigger each Delta to reboot into the newly prepared firmware. That final step should take only a couple seconds, with the Deltas reconnecting to the app almost immediately after.

The goal here is simple: firmware updates should stop being a long, frustrating process and instead happen quietly in the background until they are ready to be applied.

This is our first release of the new OTA system, and we’ll be watching it closely as it rolls out. As we begin shipping additional updates through it, we’ll keep refining the process based on real-world feedback.

Improved Delta Mesh

One of the biggest changes in v2 is a major upgrade to the Delta Mesh itself.

In v1, the mesh had some real limitations. If a weather anchor temporarily disconnected as you moved around a site, it would not always reliably rejoin when you came back into range. In practice, that meant the mesh could feel more brittle than it should during normal work.

With v2, we’ve significantly improved how the mesh handles connecting, disconnecting, and reconnecting. Weather anchors should now be able to ebb and flow in and out of range much more naturally as you work, without causing the same instability or disruption when they leave and rejoin.

We’ve also expanded the number of Deltas that can participate concurrently in a project.

For 4-Delta kit owners, this is a very big change.

Previously, the fourth Delta mostly served as a range extension over a 3-Delta kit. With v2, that starts to change. This release supports up to three concurrently connected weather anchors during a project, which means a 4-Delta kit is no longer just giving you more coverage. It can now actively contribute more to overall measurement stability as well.

Just as importantly, this lays the groundwork for where we’re going next. We’re already working toward support for up to five concurrent connections, which will allow configurations like up to 4 weather anchors, or 3 weather anchors plus 2 Deltas on the implement.

That is a very big unlock, not just for stability improvements, but for entirely new capabilities as well.

Wind Handling & System Stability

Wind has been one of the biggest focuses of this release.

The challenge is not simply “wind” by itself. If all Deltas experience the same pressure change consistently, that largely cancels out. What hurts us is when different Deltas experience different pressure disturbances at different times. Gusts, turbulence, and local environmental effects create discrepancies between nodes, and those discrepancies are what bleed into the final relative elevation value.

With v2, we’re attacking that problem in three major ways.

Adaptive Filtration

The first is Adaptive Filtration.

This gives you control over how aggressively the system filters pressure noise, with settings ranging from Calm to Heavy Wind. The lighter the filter, the more responsive the system feels, but the more wind noise can work its way through. The heavier the filter, the more stable the readings become, but the more responsiveness you give up.

That tradeoff is important to understand. Adaptive Filtration can make a very meaningful difference in turbulent conditions, but it does so by balancing stability against immediacy. If you want maximum responsiveness, you can run lighter filtering. If you want maximum stability in rough conditions, you can run heavier filtering, understanding that you may want to pause briefly before taking a strong measurement to allow the data to settle.

In our testing, this has made a substantial difference in improving stability in challenging conditions.

Experimental Phase Correction

The second is a new experimental feature we call Phase Correction.

Pressure disturbances often move through the environment in waves, which means different Deltas can experience the same disturbance at slightly different times. Phase Correction is designed to address that by analyzing the environment in real time and shifting the signals from the Deltas to better synchronize what the mesh is seeing.

The goal is to help the Delta Mesh perceive the environment in a more unified way, which can reduce variation in the final relative elevation we report.

Like Adaptive Filtration, this also involves a tradeoff between stability and responsiveness. It is also a newer and less battle-tested capability, which is why we are releasing it first as an experimental feature. If you’d like to try it, you can enable it in Settings.

If you do, we would love to hear how it performed for you and whether it helped.

More Concurrent Weather Anchors

The third improvement is the mesh itself.

Because v2 supports a third concurrent weather anchor, 4-Delta kits can now actively reduce noise in a way they could not before. In this initial release, that third anchor is incorporated through our general fusion approach with the other anchors, which already produces a meaningful reduction in noise.

That point is important, because this is not just “more filtering.” It is the system benefiting from more information about the environment, and that distinction matters.

Adaptive Filtration and Phase Correction both help by shaping the signal more intelligently, but they do so by trading some responsiveness for more stability. Additional anchors open the door to a different kind of improvement. They allow us to reduce discrepancies more mechanically through better fusion, rather than simply smoothing them away after the fact.

So in this release, third weather anchor support already gives 4-Delta kit owners a real stability benefit today, but it is also setting up something bigger.

In upcoming v2 releases, we plan to go further than simply allowing more anchors to be connected. We’ll be able to use those additional anchors in more advanced fusion strategies that attack discrepancies more intelligently and with less reliance on filtering. That is the path toward reducing wind-related instability without paying as much of a responsiveness penalty.

And once we support up to five concurrent Deltas, it opens the door even further. Configurations with up to 4 weather anchors, or 3 weather anchors plus 2 subject Deltas on the implement, will allow even stronger discrepancy reduction and entirely new capabilities like tilt grading.

For example, with two Deltas on either end of a bucket and a known distance between them, we’ll be able to calculate the exact relative elevation across that span while also leveraging the broader mesh to help mitigate environmental noise.

We always knew the mesh was going to be the real multiplier. The v1 firmware made it hard for us to take advantage of that. With v2, we’re finally beginning to unlock it.

And this is only the start. You should expect a lot more firmware updates coming in the near future.

Orientation & IMU Calibration

In v1, the pitch and roll values we showed were based on uncalibrated IMU behavior.

With v2, we now have proper automatic calibration enabled in the IMU, and it saves that calibration state as it goes. What that means in practice is that as you normally use the Delta, the inertial measurement system is continuously calibrating itself and preserving that progress.

The result is more accurate and consistent pitch and roll behavior. When you are moving the Delta around, it should track more correctly, and when you stop moving, the values should no longer snap away from the measurement the way they could before.

There is still more we want to do here, particularly around reducing visible jumpiness when the orientation is resting right on the boundary between two degree values, so expect further improvements in future firmware updates.

Standby Time Battery Life Improvements

With v2, we are also seeing an incremental improvement in standby battery life.

Previously, we quoted standby at around 96 hours, or about 4 days. Now, we are seeing standby time closer to 120 hours on a full charge, so up to around 5 days.

There is still more work to do here, including continuing to monitor standby power consumption for consistency and pushing further on in-project runtime in future updates, but it is moving in the right direction.

Closing

This release is a big one, but more than anything, it marks a turning point.

v2 is not just a collection of improvements. It is a new foundation. It gives us more flexibility, more headroom, and a much better platform to keep improving the Delta faster and more effectively going forward.

We’re excited to get it into your hands, and we’ll be listening closely as it rolls out. In the meantime, Rebecca is going to follow this up with some additional posts covering each of these topics in more detail, so stay tuned for those!

Upcoming

Up next, we're going to be focusing on a few things:

• Finalizing the details on the hardware upgrade program

• Implementing some of these more advanced wind elimination techniques that leverage the larger number of Deltas in the Delta Mesh, including introducing the capability for 5 concurrent Deltas in the Mesh.

• Implementing tilt compensation for two Deltas on an implement, opening the door for tilt grading.

• Refining the phase correction system based on operator feedback.

• App usability enhancements.

We would like to thank so many of our operators for providing feedback, testing, and helping make this update and the Delta itself possible.

Best,

Tim

Since a lot of you ordered before we had these, we wanted to share them here too. They’re meant to be simple, at-a-glance guides for things like how the Delta works, calibration, getting a project started, and a handful of tips we’ve picked up from real-world use.

If you’ve discovered any tips or tricks of your own while using your Deltas, feel free to share them below. That kind of feedback helps everyone.

The end of 2025 was a whirlwind in the best possible way. We welcomed a huge number of new customers into the Dirty Devices family, shipped a lot of Delta kits, and kept our heads down building. While fulfillment ramped up, the team has been working across three major fronts at once: new hardware, firmware, and the mobile app.

This update is about where things stand, what we’ve been focused on, and where we’re headed next.

Delta v1.2 is here (and upgradeable)

Over the past few months, we’ve been rolling out Delta v1.2, a refinement shaped directly by what we’ve learned from the first year of real-world use. It’s not a reinvention, it’s a tighter, more polished version of the Delta you already know.

Just as importantly, we’ve worked hard to make v1.2 upgradeable from v1.1. If you invested early, we don’t believe you should have to replace an entire kit just to benefit from improvements. In the coming weeks, we’ll share details on the upgrade program. Our goal is simple: make it as affordable as possible and essentially cover our costs. More on that very soon.

We’re ditching WiFi for firmware updates

One of the biggest internal efforts lately has been a major firmware overhaul. We’ve been tackling several long-term challenges we’ve seen in the field, starting with firmware updates themselves.

Previously, Deltas connected directly to WiFi to check for and download updates. While that worked for many, it also caused frustration for some. So we rebuilt the system from the ground up.

Going forward, firmware updates will be delivered through the mobile app. No WiFi setup required. Updates will install quietly in the background, and when they’re ready, a quick reboot applies them. That’s it.

This change dramatically reduces friction, and it sets us up to ship frequent improvements without driving anyone nuts. This new update system is rolling out first, and you should see it live within the next couple of weeks.

Tackling temperature drift

Next up is temperature drift. This one took time to track down because it didn’t affect everyone equally.

We’ve traced the root cause to variability in the factory calibration of the pressure sensors themselves. Some sensors behave perfectly across temperature changes. Others drift more than they should. Because this wasn’t consistent across all units, it took careful investigation and a lot of help from customers to fully understand.

The good news: this is something we can address in firmware. We’re actively working on a correction that compensates for these calibration differences, and this will be the immediate follow-on update after the firmware update overhaul.

Huge thanks to everyone who worked with us to diagnose this. Your feedback made a real difference.

Wind improvements are underway

Wind is the next major focus, and we’re approaching it from multiple angles.

Some of the improvements are intentionally simple, like giving users more control over filtering. On calm days, you’ll be able to run lighter filtering for maximum responsiveness. On windy days, you can dial up stability at the cost of a little speed.

Beyond that, we’re working on new placement strategies and system configurations that give the Delta Mesh more context, allowing it to better reject fast-moving wind effects. We’re also beginning to leverage additional sensors that aren’t fully utilized yet.

We’re taking this step by step, prioritizing the changes that deliver the biggest gains first.

Looking ahead

There’s a lot more coming. The mobile app is undergoing significant work to support new visualizations, new workflows, and entirely new use cases. 2025 was about getting Delta into the field and learning fast. 2026 is about building on that foundation, refining what’s already there, and continuing to deliver real value for the way you work.

If you’re already a customer, thank you for trusting us and sticking with us. If you’re considering Delta, know this: this is an active, evolving product backed by a committed team that’s in it for the long haul.

More updates soon. We’re just getting started.

- Tim