DickTrickle
Definitely NOT Furor Planedefiler
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I'm not sure if this should really belong in the "Stuff I bought thread" or in this forum, but I'll make a post here and it can be moved if necessary.
So, ever since I saw Predator in the theater when I was 7 (yay, parenting!) I've always had a fascination with thermal imaging and thought it would be pretty damn cool to have one. The reality, however, is that shit is super expensive for the most part. A genuine VGA level resolution can cost 10K.
Recently, however, two companies have come out with a compact thermal camera that attaches to your phone. They're in the $230-300 range. I bought the FLIR One Therma Imager for Android because it has a regular camera that it uses to overlay an image on top of the thermal image. This makes the image seems higher resolution than it really is (the actual thermal image resoluation is only something like 160x120). Seek, the other company making this kind of product, does not have a system like that. Still, I do believe their thermal camera has a slightly higher resolution (206x156), so that offsets it a little bit.
I have to say, I'm pretty impressed by it. I'm very much treating it like a new toy, going around and looking at different things. It's neat to see the air vents in the wall, or where heat is unexpectly entering the house, or even being able to see the studs in a wall. While it's mostly a toy for me, I could see someone getting some real use out of it for household maintenance/repair or computer/circuity troubleshooting. There's a setting in the app to get the actual thermal reading for a given spot so it's not just guess work. My wife has a condition where blood doesn't get to her extremities as well as a normal person and it was interesting comparing our arms -- my arm and hand was a fairly solid red/white but her arm went from red/white to a yellow/green/blue mixture in her hands.
Because some cameras have the micro USB port facing different ways and the FLIR attaches to that port, there are also two adapters included that will allow you to face the camera the right way regardless of where the micro USB port is on your phone. Seek does not have these (though I'm sure you could get some online).
The FLIR app is pretty good, though a bit buggy/crashy. It does offer nine different visual representations. My favorites are the rainbow (default Predator view) and the purple/blue/magenta/orange color scheme. You can take still shots, video, a panoroma, and a time lapse sequence. By default, the colors automatically scale and shift to the high and low temperatures visible by the camera (so if you place it near a fridge, everything outside will look hot by comparison). You can turn that off so that the colors are always using the same scale.
I know I sound like a shill but I just like my new toy.
Below are some pictures:
So, ever since I saw Predator in the theater when I was 7 (yay, parenting!) I've always had a fascination with thermal imaging and thought it would be pretty damn cool to have one. The reality, however, is that shit is super expensive for the most part. A genuine VGA level resolution can cost 10K.
Recently, however, two companies have come out with a compact thermal camera that attaches to your phone. They're in the $230-300 range. I bought the FLIR One Therma Imager for Android because it has a regular camera that it uses to overlay an image on top of the thermal image. This makes the image seems higher resolution than it really is (the actual thermal image resoluation is only something like 160x120). Seek, the other company making this kind of product, does not have a system like that. Still, I do believe their thermal camera has a slightly higher resolution (206x156), so that offsets it a little bit.
I have to say, I'm pretty impressed by it. I'm very much treating it like a new toy, going around and looking at different things. It's neat to see the air vents in the wall, or where heat is unexpectly entering the house, or even being able to see the studs in a wall. While it's mostly a toy for me, I could see someone getting some real use out of it for household maintenance/repair or computer/circuity troubleshooting. There's a setting in the app to get the actual thermal reading for a given spot so it's not just guess work. My wife has a condition where blood doesn't get to her extremities as well as a normal person and it was interesting comparing our arms -- my arm and hand was a fairly solid red/white but her arm went from red/white to a yellow/green/blue mixture in her hands.
Because some cameras have the micro USB port facing different ways and the FLIR attaches to that port, there are also two adapters included that will allow you to face the camera the right way regardless of where the micro USB port is on your phone. Seek does not have these (though I'm sure you could get some online).
The FLIR app is pretty good, though a bit buggy/crashy. It does offer nine different visual representations. My favorites are the rainbow (default Predator view) and the purple/blue/magenta/orange color scheme. You can take still shots, video, a panoroma, and a time lapse sequence. By default, the colors automatically scale and shift to the high and low temperatures visible by the camera (so if you place it near a fridge, everything outside will look hot by comparison). You can turn that off so that the colors are always using the same scale.
I know I sound like a shill but I just like my new toy.
Below are some pictures:
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