FLIR CEO Andy Teich at International CES 2015: http://youtu.be/ldbDDjtThuI
See 0:50
He says it's using a new lepton sensor with four tines the resolution! That's 160x120 (or a different ratio if it's really 16:9)
RIP seek
Is it possible that he's talking about using a native 80 x 60 sensor with SuperResolution-like enhancements?
FLIR CEO Andy Teich at International CES 2015: http://youtu.be/ldbDDjtThuI
See 0:50
He says it's using a new lepton sensor with four tines the resolution! That's 160x120 (or a different ratio if it's really 16:9)
RIP seek
Is it possible that he's talking about using a native 80 x 60 sensor with SuperResolution-like enhancements?
That is possible, but he specifically states that it's a new sensor. I would assume any super resolution would be processed on the phone, not the lepton sensor.
Another image posted by ArsTechnica;
That image looks to good to be 80x60, or is the MSX messing with my eyes?
The buyers remorse is strong with the Seek Thermal... sigh. As is such the risk with any early adoption.
From the sales FAQ it directs you to:
http://www.flir.com/flirone2015. In the video it says it's a brand new Lepton sensor.
Four additional documents on the press page:
http://www.flir.com/flirone/press.cfmFrom their press release..."The FLIR ONE will be available for pre-order online from FLIR.com mid-year and will be available through retail partners across the globe later this year." ... and ... "Developers for Android will gain access to the SDK in the spring."
-Mike
From the sales FAQ it directs you to: http://www.flir.com/flirone2015. In the video it says it's a brand new Lepton sensor.
Four additional documents on the press page: http://www.flir.com/flirone/press.cfm
From their press release..."The FLIR ONE will be available for pre-order online from FLIR.com mid-year and will be available through retail partners across the globe later this year." ... and ... "Developers for Android will gain access to the SDK in the spring."
-Mike
So, yeah.
At best the same delay as for last year's iPhone-5 model, and more likely an even longer delay. This is sounding more and more like just a preemptive PR strike.
It would not surprise me at all if FLIR borged SEEK Thermal at some point in the future.
This would absolutely, positively, never, ever happen...ever...in a billion years. Ever. Not even remotely. Never.
To understand why you need to understand some of the history between Seek's founder, Bill Parrish, and FLIR. And then add the Raytheon relationship on top of that.
Here's an article that came up with some simple googling:
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2011/05/20/flir-to-pay-39m-to-settle-lawsuit.html?page=allIf anything, the competition in the phone thermal camera space has a bit of a personal touch given the history between the two parties. There are much bigger things at stake outside of cool phone gadgets. Consideration of Lepton and Seek's equivalent as an OEM core for much higher volume applications are where the real $ will be made. The phone attachments are simply vehicles to raise awareness of what IR can do for the average joe.
Did they say if this thing can see past 100c ?
Looks like they got rid of the manual NUC requirement as well for both new products. I wonder if they are using a internal shutter on them or if the "new" sensor does not need it?
Given FLIR's history it really makes me think that the lepton really is a 320x240 part with some internal efuses blown or the like to dumb it down to the spec listed. Re-watching Mike's tear down of the first Flir One the size of the sensor window behind the lens looks like it could not be made larger and still fit in the package. Some one would likely need to take a thermal image to see the sensor die behind the window or destructively remove it to be 100%.
As the TG165 LEPTON has a FFC shutter, I hope that they have used it in their new products.
Whilst it is possible to run a microbolometer without an FFC shutter, I am uncertain how well such would perform at this price point, especially if temperature measurements are to be reasonably accurate.
Aurora
SEEK Thermal have just released a new app to remove gradient issue. Seems to work so they may have made some breathing room in light of the new FLIR units.
Is this new app release a coincidence or have SEEK seen the threat to their product and reacted ? We may never know.
Aurora
http://youtu.be/SQlWjlSy6HM?t=21sSee ~21s
I notice the frame rate is very low, much lower than the 9hz of the original FLIR One. Could this just be because this model is a prototype, or could something else be changed?
When Mike took apart the original FLIR one, he found a full Linux based system running in it. For price and form factor reasons, could it be possible that FLIR has removed this and now rely on the phone for much more of the processing, resulting in reduced performance?
there is almost nothing to do for Iphone, except the MSX calculation
see data sheet of Flir Leepton sensor:
http://www.pureengineering.com/projects/leptonThe Flat-Field Correction (FFC) normalization is inside the lepton firmware
LEP_RunSysFFCNormalization() Executes the FFC command.
thermal data rate:
TWI 400 kHz
80x60 Pixel
16 Bit (RAW is a function of temperature)
with 9Hz frame rate we get
-> 80x60x2x9=86.000 Bytes/sec
plus protocol overhead
but the visible VGA image:
640x480x9(Hz)
= 2.7 MB/sec
It's great to see cheaper thermal imaging devices being available, I recently got someone to come do a basic thermal imaging of inside my house to see where I'm losing heat as I could not find any place that would rent a thermal imager. They start at 5k and up but it seems devices like this may be great for the average consumer that does not need the extra features and accuracy of a full blown imager. The guy who did it said even for him 5k was a lot since it takes many home inspections to pay for it and by that time it might be time to replace/upgrade.
I'll definitely look into buying one of these if/when it comes out in Canada.
Internal battery in the new Flir One! Awesome, with that it might actually work on my Nexus 4, which can act as a USB host for communication, but doesn't do power delivery, which is why the SEEK doesn't work with it. I'm kinda excited about that one
here are some C2 specs:
IR 80 x 60 (4800 pixel)
Thermal Sensitivity <0.10°C
Minimum Focus Distance Thermal: 0.15 m (0.49 ft.); MSX®: 1.0 m (3.3 ft.)
Object temperature range -10°C to +150°C (14 to 302°F)
Digital Camera 640 x 480 pixels
I've seen it and played with it, it's really cool and light, nice image quality when MSX is active
Availability for Europe March the 2nd, we will get them on March the 1st and start doing some tests.
Some test results for the C2 would be cool. I'm wondering how suitable it is for electronics to detect hot spots on a circuit board (close up).
Yes nctnico, this is what we also wanto to check since our business is mainly electronic applications.
We have some demo board here and as soon as we got the stock we will run some test.
If you like we can post here some picture with the evidence of the distance to target.
It's interesting to note that the c2 specs listed above claim the older 80x60 sensor can achieve 150C. Yet the new sensor can only achieve 120C. The new sensor was expected increase the maximum temperature sensitivity, however only marginally. This information, if the sources are accurate, suggests some fragmentation. I'm curious as to the actual maximum and minimum temperatures these sensors can accurately measure. FLIR seems to be injecting bad info or the press is misreporting the facts. I want solid specifications. I ditched the Seek module in favor of the newer lepton module, simply because the temperature sensitivity and noise was horrible on the Seek. I hope this was a wise move.
I have been approached by PASS(UK) advising me of the new C2 release and inviting what is effectively a pre-order reservation. I replied that I was more interested in the new One for Android due to the higher resolution offered.I hope they will write to me again when pre-ordering of the New One model becomes possible.
I am disappointed that the C2 appears to be only 80x60. An opportunity missed ? I still consider 160x120 to be the minimum that I would find practical for generalist applications including electronics. I already own several NEC AVIO F30 (160x120) compact thermal cameras, so know what 160x120 resolution can achieve.
Even with MSX, a 80x60 camera is limited especially in the near field when looking at small targets like SMT components.
Aurora
ciao efahrenholz, I'm not sure many people here are aware about the cust help FLIR website where you can find all full specs data sheet without registering an account.
here is the link to the C2's PDF, check out if it answers to you questions.
http://80.77.70.144/DsDownload/Assets/72001-0101-en-US_A4.pdfwe should get a good amount of C2 this week and then start doing some test and as promised publish images here.
if you and other people are interested, we will offer discount code and free shipment to EU.
discount code sent via PM
here is the link to C2 product page in our webshop
http://www.batterfly.com/shop/flir-c2
Judging from the specs the C2 isn't really suitable for close-up work for electronics. At the closest distance each pixel is still over
2mm edit: 1mm in size.
edit: 1mm already sounds better than 2mm.
edit2: Why the name Batter Fly? Sounds like fry batter
custhelp doen't offer the FOV caluclator for C2 ...
ciao nctnico, I can be boring
Batter: comes from the first product I start selling which was a battery analyzer
Fly: rapresent a small company taking off
does it make sense? thanks for asking