Thoughts on TOPDON TC001?

[SnakesAndStuff]

I'm looking for a (hopefully) inexpensive IR camera solution. I would like to keep the budget under $300. Primary use would be finding bee hive locations (warm hives in wall) while doing bee removal/cutouts.

I have looked at the stats on the topdon TC001 and it looks promising.

Does anyone have here have any experience with this, or similar models? I was looking at the FLIR gen3 vs FLIR pro recently and the stats on them do not look as good. It also seems that the FLIR models now limit custom temperature range to the "pro" model. It seems this option was available on the lower models previously.

Is there any huge drawback to having a phone-attached IR camera vs a stand alone unit? I'm also fine with the camera using the phone's battery so that is not a huge con for me on some models.

[Bill W]

It is a standard Chinese sensor (256x192)  dongle camera, branded up for Topdon with some design and price point choices made.
Topdon are primarily a supplier of car mantenance equipment.

No battery is probably a good thing.
You are right to consider if dongle-attach is right for you.  It mainly comes to breakage risk and whether you'd get your phone into those situations.  Clearly there are build cost savings as a fulll camera needs processing and display, which is being provided by the phone.
Fixed focus has been an issue as some brands are not actually focussing the cameras at build, just screw the lens in and hope.

Assume you have found:
https://www.mbreviews.com/topdon-tc001-thermal-camera-review/

I do wonder how well 'auto' mode would work, you would not want to be fiddling about with range / span settings while rummaging about in a loft looking for bees.

For that money one other option would be a decent condition ex fire-service camera - which were built like a tank of course.  They are fully automatic and usually 320x240.

Bill

[robca]

I have one, used quite a few times. It's much better than any of the FLIR attached phone cameras I used before. Software on Android is more than decent, and the price is pretty low.

More opinions here https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/zvpqo9/thermal_camera_for_general_homeowner_use/

Now you can find other cameras base don what looks like the same sensor, with a clip-on macro lens, which would be good for PCB work https://www.amazon.com/InfiRay-P2-Pro-Smartphones-Resolution/dp/B0BG72B2RJ. But some of the reviews complain about the poor software

I'm definitely a happy TC001 user