Orbit

Last updated 14 October 2026

Orbit matches personal Zodial accounts from their saved charts, and opens a conversation when a connection is accepted.

What Orbit is

Orbit is compatibility matching and messaging for a personal Zodial account. Zodial for Teams does not include Orbit. Team charts, the team digest and Hermes for teams stay in Teams.

Orbit appears in the menu, and under Account, when Zodial has turned the feature on for your account.

Who can use it

You need a personal account, and the birth date you save must make you 18 or older. A date under 18 is refused. Matching also drops anyone under 18.

Turning Orbit on

Open Account › Orbit. Orbit stays off until you turn it on. Turning it on asks you to confirm: "I understand. My matches use my saved Zodial chart."

On that screen you set:

• How you describe your gender: woman, man or non-binary.
• One or more intents: dating, friendship, collaboration.
• What a match can see. Photo, handle and signs start on. City starts off. The match card uses those four. Wheel and time are saved with the profile; the card leaves them off.
• The filters below.
• Status: on, paused for 1, 7 or 30 days, or off.

The chart is the one Zodial builds from the birth date, time and place you save on your profile, under Account. The screen there says: "Orbit uses your saved Zodial chart." Birth time is changed on that profile screen.

How matches are made

Matching reads the chart saved on the Orbit profile: the placements computed from the birth record you saved. A chart that lives only in the studio on this device stays on this device.

Each day Orbit builds a short list. The default length is 3. For the intent you both share, the score runs from 0 to 100 and is built from:

• Synastry between the two saved charts. Aspects are grouped as feelings, communication, values, attraction and stability.
• The composite chart, a lunar-mansion comparison when the Moon's sign is stable enough to use, and house overlays when a chart has a birth time.
• The Ashtakoota count between the two Moons, when both profiles have Vedic comparison on.
• A smaller timing layer from the present sky to the composite.

Passes and requests nudge later scores. After enough of them, up to 15 percent of a score comes from those choices and from how often other people request that person. The rest stays with the charts.

People you have already passed or requested, people you are already connected with, and anyone on either side of a block are left out. Orbit also caps how often one person is placed in other people's daily lists, and ranks them lower after repeated placement.

Before a connection is accepted, you see a five-point band, such as 85–90, and a confidence of High, Medium or Low. High starts at 0.8 and Medium at 0.55. After you are connected, the exact score is shown.

The score describes contacts between two charts. Zodial does not guarantee a meeting, a relationship, or any other outcome.

Birth time

You can change a saved birth time twice in any rolling 12 months. The profile screen says: "Birth time can be changed twice a year, so double-check it. Not sure? Leave it blank. You'll still match with everyone."

The first birth record is written onto the chart immediately. Adding a birth time later, on the same date and coordinates, is free: it is applied immediately and does not use one of the two changes. Any other change counts. A further change is refused once two changes fall inside the past 12 months, and becomes possible again when one of them ages out of that window.

A change that counts is stored beside the chart. Matching keeps the saved chart until Zodial applies the change.

Charts with no birth time

A chart with no birth time still enters matching, alongside charts that have a birth time. The Moon is placed at the middle of its travel that day. The rising sign, Midheaven and houses are omitted, and the Moon counts for less, further when it may have changed sign during the day. Its score is ranked against a reference of other charts that also have no birth time, and the match shows a confidence level. Adding a birth time later fills in the rising sign and the houses.

Filters

Dealbreakers are mutual. You have to pass theirs, and they have to pass yours. A preference lowers your score when the other person misses the preference you set.

These always apply:

• Both people are 18 or older. Under 18 never passes, and the age margin below does not cover it.
• You share an intent: dating, friendship or collaboration.
• You share a language. A new Orbit profile starts on English.
• If you have chosen which genders to see, their gender is one of those.

In Account › Orbit you set an age range, a distance in kilometres, and a minimum score from 0 to 100. Each can be a dealbreaker or a preference. A dealbreaker removes someone who misses it. A preference keeps them and subtracts 5 points for each miss.

An age dealbreaker allows a margin of 3 years for someone already 18 or older. A distance dealbreaker allows a margin of one quarter past the distance you set. Inside the margin the person stays and the score drops by up to 10 points. Past it, they are removed. A distance dealbreaker also removes a profile that has no location saved.

A minimum score removes people only when it is marked as a dealbreaker, and both people's minimums are applied.

A language list, a photo requirement and a list of Sun signs follow the same dealbreaker or preference rule when they are saved on the account. The settings screen sets age, distance, minimum score, the genders you want to see, and intents. Distance uses the location saved on the Orbit profile. Orbit does not ask the device for a live location.

Verbindungen

A request stays pending until the other person accepts or declines. If they have already requested you, your request accepts theirs and opens the chat. The chat exists once the request is accepted. Declining marks the request declined.

Unmatch deletes that connection for both people: the chat, its messages, photos, voice notes and reactions.

Messaging

A chat can carry text of up to 2,000 characters, a photo, a voice note, a one-line chart summary and the names of your saved clocks. You can reply to a message and add a reaction. The other person can see when you are typing, and whether you have read a message.

A photo or voice note can be up to 400 KB. A photo can be at most 1,024 pixels on each side. Voice notes can be WebM, Ogg, MP4 or WAV.

Hermes in a chat

Hermes in an Orbit chat is a private helper. It offers opening lines, a short synastry note, and a suggested time to talk, taken from the aspects between the two saved charts. The lines are templates from those aspects. They are shown to you alone. Choosing a line places it in the message box. It is sent when you send the message. The suggestions are not stored, and they are not delivered to the other person.

Benachrichtigungen

Under Account › Notifications, Orbit can tell you about new matches, connection requests, accepted connections, new messages, reactions, and the day's match list. Each type can arrive in the app, by push, or by email. The in-app channel starts on. Push and email start off. Push needs a browser that supports web push. Email needs a verified address on the account.

SMS is held off. Orbit sends no text messages.

Quiet hours default to 22:00–08:00 in the time zone saved with your notification settings. A notice that falls inside quiet hours waits until they end. Setting the start and end to the same clock time turns quiet hours off.

Mute on a chat stops message and reaction notices for that chat. The messages stay in the thread.

Safety

Block stops both of you from seeing each other in discovery, requests and chats.

Report records a report. Its weight is the age of the reporting account, reaching full weight at 30 days, multiplied by 1 when that person has sent a message in the chat and by 0.35 otherwise. A report filed after four or more reports that day from accounts younger than seven days is multiplied by 0.3 as well. When the open reports on a profile add up to a weight of 3, Orbit pauses that profile. Zodial can dismiss the reports and turn the profile back on, or turn Orbit off for that account.

Saving the Orbit profile on an account under three days old keeps it out of discovery until the account is three days old, when no wait is already set. Saving a birth record during the account's first seven days, or saving one with the same date, time and coordinates as another profile, sets a 72-hour wait when none is already set. Zodial can clear either wait.

The default daily limits, resetting at midnight UTC, are 40 passes or requests, 200 messages, 30 profile views and 10 filter saves. Zodial can set different numbers.

Turning Orbit off

Set the status to Off under Account › Orbit. You leave discovery, and new matches stop. Chats you already have stay available. Pause does the same for 1, 7 or 30 days. The profile, chart, filters, connections and messages remain until you delete the account or unmatch a chat.

Turning Orbit off under Account › Features is different: your profile leaves matches and your chats pause until you turn the feature back on. Nothing is deleted.

What is stored, and what deletion removes, is in the Privacy Policy. The conduct rules are in the Terms.