Infiray P2 Pro - One year later, how is V2 doing ... or not ?

[EE-digger]

This tiny camera was looking interesting to me as a very portable supplement to several FLIR products I own.  But the thread on the V2 model has curbed that enthusiasm.

A year later now, any news on performance of the V2? And any official response from Infiray?

I noticed that Amazon has thrown up a warning banner that the product has had a high rate of returns for "compatibility".  While Android can sometimes be problematic to design for, "compatibility" is certainly a good keyword for a return reason.

[EEVloh]

Hi EE-digger,
I have the p2pro now a quarter of a year and I'm happy with it.

I use the Termal Master app (v1.1.7) which supports the Infiray P2pro and has a lot of features. As there life temp with 3 values (middle crossline, coolest and hottest temp), all the different thermal imaging profiles and a working post editing of a stored image. A PC life image version is also available, but the image from the mobile is not compatible with the PC programm. I had contact with the service and requested this compatibility. May be in a future version.

I can not live compare the V1 with the V2 performance because I have only one device purchased Dec.2024. It is also not clear for me if I have a V1 or V2 device. The firmware version is P2_V3.07 with Firmware date 11/03/22. Compare to the old V1 reviews all over the internet, I see no difference to my device.

Hope this helps.

[EE-digger]

Yes, it helps.  Thanks a lot.

I'm also finding that there are a number of other Chinese cameras as well.  It seems like many are obsolete, unavailable or priced fairly high.  I'm going to study a bit more about what's out there.  May still grab a p2pro before it's over.

Thanks again.

[Fraser]

EE-Digger,

A while ago we saw the release of a Version 2 of the T2 Pro that left some buyers underwhelmed by its performance. Then there was the X2/XH09 that has a 50Hz capability but did not impress some buyers with its performance and poor temperature measurement accuracy. There seemed to be a new (cheaper?) core in these V2 cameras and it appears to have “issues”. Without having a V1 to compare to, most V2 users would likely not notice the differences in performance. With the move by Infiray to a new core release that was appearing in their camera lineup under the same name as V1 cameras, I had to place a warning on my P2 Pro in case the P2 Pro core was changed to a V2 type. Such would effectively make my review inapplicable and possibly misleading to readers, hence the warning.

I have not seen an Infiray P2 or P2 Pro with a suffix “V2” unlike the T2 series. As such I have no proof that there are different versions of Infiray P2 and P2 Pro.

Move forward in time and we have the US sanctions on Infirays mother company and weird stuff begins to happen…….

A ‘new’ company called Thermal Master appears on the scene and its staff claim no connection to Infiray but admit to being ex Infiray staff. Make of that what you will. Thermal Master appear to be selling the Infiray product line under the Thermal Master brand.

There is a change to the Thermal Master camera lineup in the form of a new “P2” dongle camera that is different in appearance to the original Infiray P2/P2 Pro. The camera claims to be new technology with an AI image enhancement system that claims to act like a better version of Super-resolution, creating an image of double the physical resolution of the camera. AI real time resolution enhancement is now appearing in the market in place of the older image stacking approach that relied upon hand shake to generate many slightly different images for processing. AI uses its algorithms to increase the resolution by guessing what was between the physical pixels in order to increase the displayed resolution. I believe that it may be a bit more ‘intelligent’ than simple interpolation. Thermal Master advised that AI image enhancement is an area that they are exploring and continue to develop. They further advised that the new Thermal Master P2 does NOT contain an Infiray Tiny1-C core. That leads me to believe that they are using the new Infiray Tiny2 core that claims to be lower cost. Could the Tiny2 be based on the Infiray “V2” core technology ? I do not know. It claims to use new techniques for greater temperature measurement accuracy. The Thermal Master P2 was certainly accurate in temperature measurement tests that I did using it.

I tested the Thermal Master P2 and wrote a short review of it for this forum. In précis it’s performance was adequate but the X3 AI image enhancement (resolution doubling) appeared to not cope well with some thermal scenes and images looked “weird”. Other thermal scenes benefitted from the X3 mode enhancement. It was a mixed bag.

Given a choice of thermal dongles at the budget end of the marketplace, I would happily buy a Infiray P2 Pro. If the Thermal Master P2 Pro is the same as Infiray P2 Pro, I would happily buy that as well but I have no detail on the Thermal Master P2 Pro so cannot confirm that it is identical to the original Infiray product. You could ask Thermal Master if it contains a Tiny1-C and they may answer your question with a yes or no. If no, please be cautious. There may be some Thermal Master 2 Pro owners on this forum who can comment on its performance. It certainly looks the same as the Infiray P2 Pro.

If you want manual focus you will move up in price to the Infiray T2 series. I bought a T2 Pro on the used market and it is a V1 hardware platform that performs very well indeed. Owners of other T2 series V1 and V2 models may be present in this forum for comment on performance.

Fraser

[Fraser]

One final comment….. be careful if wanting to buy ‘cheap’. In the thermal imaging marketplace, including the budget end of it, you get what you pay for ! The imaging cores from Infiray, Guide Sensmart and HikMicro are not cheap parts. As such they make up a large part of the BoM cost for a manufacturer. If a thermal camera appears very cheap for it’s claimed resolution….  dig deeper. Watch out for 1:1 aspect ratios as that can be a sign that the low budget 96 x 96 pixel HikMicro Eco core is being used and interpolated up to higher resolutions in order to claim a good resolution in adverts. Such cameras are “Economy” models and HikMicro are honest about the true optical resolution in their adverts, other companies using the Eco core are often less honest.

Topdon have a reputation for producing reasonably priced budget cameras. I believe they do have an economy handheld model that uses a 160x120 pixel core and then interpolation to 240x180 pixels  (TC004 Lite) but their TC001 and TC002 dongles use the Tiny1-C core.

https://eu.topdon.com/collections/thermal-imager

Topdon certainly appear to be a very reputable company that offers value for money 

[EE-digger]

Not "cheap" but my HT-301 arrived yesterday and is probably going back in the next two days.  You warned me about the Chinese cameras and you were so right.  If I could drop an HT-301 imager core into an E60 "chassis" I'd be a happy camper ... as would many others.

While the "snapshots" from this camera far surpassed my E60, looking more like 640x, the various apps are toys, works not even in progress, abandoned in various cases.

Out of the box, the Chinese thermal imagers will remain toys until the manufacturers understand that software is as essential as the hardware.

[Fraser]

EE-Digger,

You are not the first, and will not be the last, to find some Chinese Thermal Camera Dongle APPs underwhelming in terms of features, function and bug fixes ! Sadly it is an all too common situation. There seems to be the required effort and investment in developing decent quality hardware but the software development team let the side down. I have worked with some Chinese companies and there can be an attitude of “working is good enough” with no effort to improve the software or fix minor bugs in it. I was once asked to test some thermal imaging equipment and reported all of the issues with it and the accompanying software. The manufacture said “Thank you, we will fix all those issues in the next product as we have ceased development of this one”. An all too common situation. A product is developed with a BoM limit and release timeline. Once that project is delivered, the development budget is closed and the development of a new product is started This is why I smile when I see adverts for many Chinese products claiming that the firmware may be updated by the user. Yep, it can, if only the manufacturer ever released such firmware updates ! This is a generalisation and a few Chinese manufacturers are more committed to their products and customers. HTi is not one of them !

I worked with DianYang Technology on their PCB Thermal Analysis system called the CA-10. It is basically a 256x192 pixel 25fps Infiray S0 thermal imaging core feeding it’s output to either a mobile phone or a PC/Tablet. The imaging core is capable of doing its job well but it needs equally good software to be a useful tool for PCB thermal inspection and profiling. DYT realised this and spent a lot of time and effort developing both the hardware and the all important Analysis software. The Analysis software is called SpectrumOwl and it comes in the standard (V1.x) and Professional (V2.x) versions. Which version you can use depends upon the model of hardware purchased. The software was well developed by the time I tested it but I was so pleased to hear a DYT team member tell me that they were not leaving it there and would be fixing any bugs as well as further development after feedback from end users. This attitude was a breath of fresh air for me when dealing with a Chinese thermal imaging company.

As we have seen in many products coming out of China, sometimes not enough of the project budget was spent on the software development or they ran out of budget before development could be fully completed, resulting in a half baked solution being released on the public. We have seen this situation with Hantek PC controlled test equipment and firmware. Basically it is released before being fully fit for purpose and no fixes are forthcoming.

We must also consider another factor when it comes to thermal imaging cameras and mobile phone dongles…. That is the question of who is the true OEM and does the badge engineering company that sells the product have any expertise or quality support in place for the product that they did not make ? So often a company cannot offer any meaningful support because they just bought-in a hardware & software solution and rely upon the OEM for any technical support or software updates. If the OEM is unwilling to offer decent support, the company that placed their branding on the product is basically useless to the end user when it comes to answering technical queries and issuing updates. I have met this a lot in the thermal imaging camera market.

As has been said before by me, these thermal imaging Dongles are similar to Software Defined Radio in that the clever “front end” hardware relies on the Software engineers skills in coding when it comes to the end products performance. Hardware quality is only half of the story and a great hardware platform can fail due to inadequate software development. As we all know, developing quality, efficient software code requires skilled coders and investment if man hours to do the job right. Not just grafting together sample software routines to create something that kind of works, as I have seen with some products that were little more than the re-engineering of an OEM development Board and it’s evaluation software !

Some time ago the Thermal Expert was well thought of. I wonder if that is an alternative to the HT301 ?

Fraser