Need advice - Therm App vs Pulsar Quantum lite XQ23V

[Bops]

Hi all,

I'm relatively new to thermal imaging and currently have a seek thermal XR. It's a nice piece of kit but I haven't had much luck finding roosting birds with it. I'm a bird watcher and have been through the infrared birding blog where the therm-app is suggested for birding. I was wondering if the Pulsar quantum XQ23V would be better for finding small birds vs the therm app. Any advice on this will be greatly appreciated. Due to budget constraints these are the only two options i'm considering right now.

Many thanks in advance.

Bops

[Ultrapurple]

This is being discussed in another thread at the moment. Although the emphasis there is on 640x480 cameras, much of the information also applies to 384x288 and similar lower resolution devices.

Almost any reasonable resolution thermal camera will work better than a Seek XR. I sometimes advise people to buy an XR used on eBay, play with it for a while, then sell it on and buy a 'real' thermal camera. You should get back more or less what you paid. You'll learn a lot from the Seek XR, and that knowledge will stand you in good stead for selecting the camera you really need.

[Bops]

Thanks so much for your reply Ultrapurple. That thread was very helpful.

I was however looking for specific information on whether any of the pulsar monoculars of a similar resolution as the Therm-app standard would have any advantages over the Therm-app when it comes to sensitivity. If the therm app standard has a similar performance then I would rather get that and save some money.

Bops

[Vipitis]

Here is a thread about a similar request: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/help-to-choose-camera-just-for-detection-in-daylight-no-photosvideo-need/

You can't really compare a dongle to a monocular, but as you have and dongle already, spare the money and get the ThermApp.

[Bops]

Thanks Vipitis, does the therm-app have an option to set the low and high temperature points (or at least have a 'highlight hotter than' function)? Quoting Ultrapurple from an earlier thread.

[Ultrapurple]

As far as I can recall the basic Therm-App app does have a 'hotter than' function but does not have a hi-low limit function to lock the palette/background but ThermApp Plus by Bill Kraus (available on the Play Store) certainly does, along with a whole host of other useful functions like fixed pattern noise removal, frame-averaging noise reduction, and much more. (Last time I checked it worked with everything except the Therm-App Pro).

From the ThermApp Plus Play Store page:

Most users find ThermAppPlus gives better IQ, supports features such as noise reduction, customization of palettes, hot spot detection, locking palettes, support for AVI, MPEG, raw TIFF, PNG, Cronista formats, time lapse - many of which the default app does not.

I've met Bill Kraus - he's a nice guy, really smart too - and he has been developing the app for several years. It started out largely for his own benefit because he wanted to see bats in thermal infrared.

[Ultrapurple]

I was however looking for specific information on whether any of the pulsar monoculars of a similar resolution as the Therm-app standard would have any advantages over the Therm-app when it comes to sensitivity. If the therm app standard has a similar performance then I would rather get that and save some money.

Bops

As far as I am aware the basic performance of both will be fairly similar - same resolution, similar noise level. The Pulsar (and other) scopes are more rugged and are likely to survive weather conditions and drops that would damage the ThermApp. But the ThermApp has the great advantages of interchangeable lenses and third-party app support (ThermApp Plus, ThermViewer) that significantly enhance the basic device.