REVIEW - INFIRAY P2 PRO thermal camera dongle for Android mobile phones

[mobby_6kl]

Infiray indicate that they do not recommend prolonged exposure of the P2 to a scene with contents above 300 Celsius.

From the P2 manual….

“ This product is sensitive to thermal radiation. Whether you are using it or not, do not direct its lens to the sun or other heat sources at temperatures above 300 for a long time.”

Read more: https://manuals.plus/infiray/p2-night-vision-go-thermal-camera-imager-infrared-imaging-for-mobile-phone-manual#ixzz7naNjP37R

Most microbolometers are pretty robust and ‘sun safe’ but Infiray clearly have concerns about burn-in so have included this warning in the manual. It is possible to cause localised heating of the microbolometer die through long exposure to a hot source but the effects of this (a ghost image) normally fade away quite quickly once the camera is no longer viewing the source. During my testing of the P2 Pro with the Blackbody sources, I moved the camera away between measurements above 100C as the emitted thermal energy would start to cook the P2 casing and potentially impact the measurement accuracy.

I suspect the idea is that if you enable the high temperature protection, it avoids a mistake being made as the camera will protect itself by placing the FFC flag in front of the microbolometer if a temperature above 300C is detected in the field of view. The user must then manually disable the protection to view a target that is above 300C. This is sort of a reminder that the source temperature potentially could have an impact on the P2 camera if exposure is prolonged at close range.

Fraser

Oh, thanks. A bit of a bummer considering it can measure up to 500c but realistically I'll probably rarely if ever run into this.

And yeah the new app does seem to be a bit better which is great news!


I have a laptop with USB-C so I tried plugging it in and it does work as a camera, but it has this heavy noise pattern over the image. That's my hand:



All that noise isn't noise like in a normal camera, but a pattern that's always there, you can see it's the same when looking at a blank wall here:



This made me worried that something happened to the camera but in the app the images look fine. Really seems unlikely it would be able to denoise that sort of picture that effectively.



Is this the same for everyone or just something weird with my unit?

[Fraser]

To use the camera as a webcam on a PC you need the custom USB driver for the Tiny1 core. This is provided with the Tiny1-C SDK available from Infiray. This provides the image correction factors required for a nice clean image as I showed earlier.

Regarding the high temperature protection… do not concern yourself about viewing high temperature objects, just do not leave the camera staring at them for a long time. The high temperature protection is switched off on my camera, and will remain so as it truly is not a high risk to the microbolometer in normal (sensible) use.

Fraser

[beatle]

Absolutely stunning review Fraser, thank you for doing this work and sharing with everyone! 

This has pushed me over the edge to deciding to purchase one, but am I missing something or has the price gone up by around 100 bucks a week or so ago!?
Looking at price tracker sites, the P2 PRO with the add-on lens went for around 250 $ during the last two months and then jumped to 350 $ and more in all Aliexpress stores.

[Fraser]

I just checked and the prices to the UK still looked like around £200. I then noticed an interesting detail. Some sellers are selling the P2 Pro camera on its own with the Close-up lens an optional extra. This may be what you are seeing. I saw one seller offering the close-up lens on its own for around $80.

It is worth shipping around as you will know. There are often discounts on these cameras at this time of year.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I found the P2 Pro for $251 on Ali Express and it includes the Close-up lens. They also offer it for $233 without the add on close-up lens. They are claiming a discount of 30% on an RRP of $358?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005043220993.html?pdp_npi=2%40dis%21GBP%21%EF%BF%A1286.16%21%EF%BF%A1200.31%21%21%21%21%21%40211b443e16713148227805615e1a6b%2112000031430381049%21btf&_t=pvid%3A8b6d2ef6-18bd-4aa3-a8ea-ddafcef5cab7&afTraceInfo=1005005043220993__msite__c_ppc_item_bridge__xxxxxx__1671314823&spm=a2g0n.ppclist.product.0

[beatle]

I found the P2 Pro for $251 on Ali Express and it includes the Close-up lens. They also offer it for $233 without the add on close-up lens. They are claiming a discount of 30% on an RRP of $358?

I greatly appreciate you taking the time to look into this!

Strangely, when I went to the link that you shared, it stated a price of 303$ for the set. I guess it is location based, maybe they have different prices for UK and EU because of taxes, I don't know. Although I was sure I saw prices around the 250$ mark a week ago for my location too.

I will shop around, as you suggest!

[katzenhai2]

Strangely, when I went to the link that you shared, it stated a price of 303$ for the set. I guess it is location based, maybe they have different prices for UK and EU because of taxes, I don't know. Although I was sure I saw prices around the 250$ mark a week ago for my location too.

I will shop around, as you suggest!

There was a set with the macro lens for Android for 243,71 € (on the far right in the options) but thats not available anymore hence the higher price (now 292,69 €).

[Fraser]

iOS Compatible P2 Pro

For those who might wish to use the P2 Pro with an Apple iOS phone or tablet, Infiray make a P2 Pro iOS (Lightning) and the same format of P2 Pro application is available on the Apple App Store. The iOS device needs to be running at least iOS 13 for compatibility. Sadly that rules out iPad Air 1 tablets as they stopped updating at iOS 12. A pity as I have a couple of spare Air 1’s.

Good to see that Infiray are supporting the iOS community though.

Fraser

[Fraser]

A suggestion for Infiray……

It would be useful to be able to run the P2 Pro application Gallery image analysis mode without the camera fitted. This would enable users to analyse images on various compatible platforms without needing the camera to be plugged in and working. In my case I could send images to my iPad from my Android phone and benefit from a larger display for the image analysis element of my work. It would be a sort of ‘off-line’ editing and analysis mode of the P2 Pro application. Such a mode would also enable sharing of images with people who do not have the camera but who wish to analyse an image produced by someone else.

I shall send this suggestion direct to Infiray.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Whilst looking at the iOS version of the P2 Pro I saw a different App being used and it has piqued my interest. It appears to have different functionality to the P2 Pro App and is worthy of further investigation. From the pictures it appears to have a manual level and span mode but that could just be the Isotherm mode. See the attached images from this page….

https://m.sunsky-online.com/p/DCA2076H/InfiRay-P2-Pro-8-Pin-iOS-Phones-Night-Vision-Infrared-Thermal-Imager-Grey-.htm

[blargg]

I just received my P2 Pro + macro and this is one of the best tech toys I've bought, especially at $239 with the macro lens included. Maybe an oscilloscope comes second. First thermal camera and I'm really glad I got this unit. It fits well on my two phones (LG V20 with Android 8 and Moto G Power 2020 with Android 11), including with the clear rubbery bumper cases. I like how small it is so I can bring it with me to examine the larger world.

I've had a few issues, fairly minor. First where the app won't detect the camera and I have to exit the app then manually open it again. I do NOT have to remove and re-insert the camera. On my V20, with a less-tall screen, the photo/record text goes off the bottom so I have to tap where they would be to get them. Finally, I can't seem to get the Spot Temp Display to work (it's grayed out). I can place temp points and it awkwardly shows the temp of them in the corner rather than at the point. Thanks Fraser, I have going back to simple mode enabled the spot temp feature. Odd it can't support that in pro mode.

EDIT: the app hanging on open is actually a serious issue. Sometimes I just can't get it to work. Keep killing it, removing and reinserting camera. Have to reboot phone to get app to work. Very frustrating.

I'd been waiting for years to get a thermal camera, not liking the FLIR offerings which have internal batteries, restrictive apps, and low frame rates and resolution. I saw a YouTube video recently about the P2 Pro and the 25 Hz frame rate stood out. I delved into the overly numerous offerings from Infiray but still settled on this one for its compactness and lack of having to mess with focus. The macro makes up for that. I looked a little into other brands, specifically Seek, but those didn't match the frame rate etc.

Distribution seemed iffy as there seems to be no official seller for them. I looked around for sellers and found Pergear that has the P2 Pro+ (with macro lens) for $239 shipped, no tax (I'm in the USA). The site looked a little generic but I delved more and they seemed legit and it was a good deal. They have PayPal checkout so I was able to use my Chase 5% cash back they have for PayPal currently. 18 days total from order to delivery to USA. They took several days to get it shipped out. They claim to offer a one-year warranty which seemed better than what I'd get through a random Aliexpress seller. I've had bad experience with AliExpress buyer protection so was glad to find another seller. It was well-packed too with a couple of layers of foam, inside a bubble mailer. So it worked out well.

We have cats and it's a blast watching them walk around leaving little paw heat prints, and shapes when they stand in one place for a while.

[Fraser]

Pleased to hear that you like the little P2 Pro.

Regarding spot temperature measurement….. the App defaults to “Pro” mode which offers you three different measurement types….. spot, line and rectangle ROI. As an advanced mode it permits the user to set where’re those measurements are positioned on the scene. There are three of each type of measurement available to deploy. For a simpler mode without the manually placed measurements, go to settings and switch off them”Pro” mode. This then gives you the same scenes settings but with an automatic measurement mode. The automatic measurement offers the maximum, minimum and centre spot temperatures with markers showing where they are and measurements adjacent to the marker. The measurement function can be switched off with the spot icon in the user menu. You can also switch off the Infiray watermark if you do not want it on your images. Just go to the menu and deselect the Watermark.

Fraser

[babysitter]

Thank you for the written review (non video). Is that a bahtinov mask you used for resolution?
Really considering this thiny plug in.

[Vipitis]

Some video codecs will mit work with those odd resolutions out of the box, so the lazy way is to upscale first to a supported resolution.

[Fraser]

If considering buying a Infiray P2 Pro please read the following thread and do your own research !

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/infiray-v2-cameras-not-as-good-as-v1-models/

Infiray are releasing new versions of their cameras and some appear to be exhibiting performance issues ! My review applies only to the P2Pro V3 of May 2022.

Fraser