Recommend me an FLIR Camera

[paulca]

While these are cool to have for electronics projects, I have a need to know where my house is losing heat.

So an IR Camera seems an easy way to spot the worst offenders for heat loss and focusing my upgrades in priority order.

The trouble is that IR Cameras range from £100 to £10,000 and probably beyond.   I need to find out where I am on that scale, for what I need it for.

I'd like enough resolution to see things like window edges.  So from 2 meters away if I point it at a window I'd like to see an outline of a window, not just a cooler blob.

I expect temperature range will not be a problem and -10 to 125C would work for most things, but 500C would be nice.

I don't mind if it's a popular Chinese knock off, clone or whatever as long it's known to work.  I won't be using it professionally and it will get used once or twice a year probably.

I don't think I like the phone plug ins, but I could see how they could get your a better camera for the price as the phone handles the screen and some of the processing, so not excluding.

For budget I feel like £200 is where I'm at, but could go higher if it was worth it.

[VK3DRB]

Get yourself a Flir One. Low cost, good performance, close to your budget. Connects to a mobile phone Micro-USB or C-type USB socket. I bought one for a previous workplace and borrowed it to measure thermal leakage areas in the house... worked a treat. It worked well for thermal measurements on some SMD PCBs as well. Shop around for the cheapest price.

It will also show the outline of your window because it superimposes the camera image outline onto the thermal image.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/FLIR-ONE-Thermal-Imaging-Camera-for-Android-USB-C-Gen-3/113130242749?hash=item1a571682bd:g:-BsAAOSwg8hdr7yy&frcectupt=true

One word of warning: Do not subject the Flir One to excessive physical force when connected to a mobile phone, else you could damage the USB connector in the mobile phone, as someone did when they borrowed my phone and Flir One.

[paulca]

I took a quick look this morning.  However the FLIR is USB-C only.  I have no devices with USB-C and my phone is USB-Micro.

the FLIR One PRO has USB Micro but it's £400.

[VK3DRB]

That's odd. When they were first released to the USA, I was pretty sure you could order either a type C or a micro-USB version - same price. I got it sent to the bloke in the USA's address and he hand carried it to OZ, before you could buy any of them in Australia. Much cheaper in the USA.
 

[paulca]

Just checked their website:

To be compatible with FLIR ONE, the mobile device must have a USB-C connector. To be compatible with FLIR ONE Pro, the mobile device must have a USB-C or micro USB connector.

https://www.flir.co.uk/support-center/flir-one/flir-one-device-compatibility/

Which was lucky I checked as I found some sellers on EBay/Amazon do "claim" a MicroUSB version, but the pricing made me suspicious.

[paulca]

Asides the visual overlay this looks like a better option.
Seek Thermal

[VK3DRB]

The website at Flir in the UK (it is a very slow website for some reason), suggests you can purchase an adapter. I have never tried it with an adapter, but such an arrangement will provide a bigger toque if you bump the Flir camera, making it easier to damage the USB socket as the whole thing is rigid. I do not know what the effects are having the Flir camera with a greater offset distance from the mobile phone image. There may be none if the software can handle a large offset (ie: compensate for parallax errors) in which case, you might want to consider trying a short flexible adapter cable. The advantage of the adapter cable is you protect the mobile phone USB socket somewhat more. Or just handle the whole kit and kaboodle with care when using it.

At the end of the day, you will likely be quite impressed with the Flir camera. I know I was.

PS: Do not consider pointing it at humans, as it in an invasion of privacy. I don't think our laws have caught up with the technology, but if I ever caught someone using it for "ulterior motives", he or she would be in some pretty bad strife.

[paulca]

PS: Do not consider pointing it at humans, as it in an invasion of privacy. I don't think our laws have caught up with the technology, but if I ever caught someone using it for "ulterior motives", he or she would be in some pretty bad strife.

Nice.  Out of curiosity, to see how up to date law was, I googled:
"is it illegal to use an IR camera privacy voyeur"

and got a child abuse warning message.  WTF!?  Thankfully the actual results where much more benign.  Wikipedia, law enforcement cases without warrant, my neighbour is spying on me.... etc.

Anyway, the UK have always had voyeur laws and they have recently been updated to include candid photography, don't think it matters if it's IR or visible.

I am a little paranoid now.  With that search flagged if I buy one now I'll light up like a false positive Christmas tree on the surveillance radars.  Damn you google!

Oh... not mentioning of course that I play DCS World combat simulator and have literally dozens of google searches relating to military use of FLIR and associated targetting systems.

Am I being paranoid?

[nctnico]

I have a Flir C2 which works well. You have to be aware that the cheaper cameras are usually only spot thermometers.

[paulca]

I have a Flir C2 which works well. You have to be aware that the cheaper cameras are usually only spot thermometers.

Yes, aware of those types.

Looking at comparison reviews, the FLIR One is actually the lesser camera for a few reasons, mostly US security export restrictions limiting resolution and refresh rate.

The Seek has a much higher resolution and much higher refresh rate, the only lacking feature is it doesn't overlay the visual image on the IR image, but I can live without that.

Downside... you would need to be careful if carrying a Seek through international borders or at least the US.

[nctnico]

The overlay likely isn't doing you any good for close-ups since the visual and IR part aren't perfectly aligned.

[paulca]

So the Seek Thermal arrived.

Probably the only thing I would like that I don't think it does is, fixed range.  It's a bit harder to use when it keeps dynamically adjusting the range.  One moment deep blue is 14*C the next it's 18*C and so on.

[Red Squirrel]

Personally I'd rather go with a dedicated stand alone device.  The issue with phone based ones is that phones change so fast, will it still be compatible in 5-10 years from now?  Will they still make the app, will the USB connector stay the same on newer phones? Things to think about. 

I might eventually buy a FLIR handheld myself at some point as it would be a fun toy to have, but can't really justify it yet.