Thermal Imaging cam?

F

frankred

Getting the hang of it
May 14, 2015
302
16
I am listening to an owl hoot in my back yard and I am wondering where he is. I have also heard advertisements for using smart phone connected thermal imaging sensors to detect insulation problems in the home. Does anyone have any experience with these? IP or otherwise...
Thanks!
John
 
Thermal imagers are great for all weather day night detection. Unlike the movies however you dont get to see through solid objects to the heat source on the other side, so it could be hit and miss trying to find an owl in a tree with one. They are also expensive, and not something I would consider purchasing unless I had a very specific application in mind.
 
I have a Seek Thermal camera for Android. The temperature reading is very inaccurate (compared to a $15 touchless thermometer anyway). It can't resolve fine variations in temperature very well, though perhaps part of this is due to the noisy image it produces. The frame rate is also very low. And it clicks audibly every few seconds due to a continuous calibration process. On the plus side, it is one of the cheapest thermal cameras a person can buy. Despite its deficiencies it could still be used to find major heat leaks in a house, or to spot warm bodies in the dark, or other tasks that require neither high precision or high accuracy. I posted some captures from it in this thread back when I got it: https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/1865-AXIS-thermal-network-cameras?highlight=seek+thermal

I could see a low end thermal camera being a great addition to an IP camera. It could be used for presence detection and be basically immune to shadows, headlights, insects, and other things that commonly fool motion detection algorithms. There just isn't a viable option available on the market yet to my knowledge. Not at a price point that could be embraced by home users.
 
I think thermal cameras would be better for wide open presence detection, especially at night when temperature differences with warm bodies would be big enough to pick out..

Dahua has some thermal cameras on there website they just released, no idea on costs yet.. I personally dont have any application for one but I have family on farms who've been needing something like this for predator watching.. Ir really dont get the range to see a Coyote slinking along across an open field unless he happens to look into the light.. With a thermal they could keep track of pack/herd sizes of all the wildlife passing through alot easier.
 
I think this is a practical use for thermal and on scopes price not tooo scary, would be more effective for your predator problems.





or just get your relatives to buy a chopper and don't wait for night time.



gotta love big boys toys.


not what your looking for I know but, this one I am considering for Samsung 6

http://www.flir.com/flirone/content/?id=69420
 
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my father in law already has a Coyote picking military night scope.. its not thermal tho and I had one pinned down like 10ft infront of me in the grass and we could not see em at all with night vision.. we both looked through it the glass several times and could not see anything but grass blades and twigs.. capped off the night vision then I lit up a real light and there were his eyes, right where we were looking trying to find him..

a thermal one he'd of been alot easier to find, the brush was not thick.. but enough to totally fuckup night vision with reflective surfaces.. if I put one of these on the gable of his 3 story barn and they wont be able to hide anywhere near the livestock.. the've got goats/pigs/chickens/phesants/etc they gotta defend.. but yeah he's probably going to need a matching thermal on his rifle if he has any chance of taking em out in these conditions.. obviously his light amplifying scope is not that effective.

If he had one in the right spot he might just be able to observe enough at night to know where they bed down out in the fields durring the day.. then when there taking a siesta he can flank em and take a few of em out before they even realize he is there.. We've done this the hard way and canvasing hundreds of acres in the blistering sun only to come up empty is no fun.
 
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Has anyone found any pricing info on Dahua's high res thermal series yet? I can't believe I just called 336x256 high res ... but right now the only moderately affordable thermal IP camera I can find is FLIR TCX Thermal Mini at $435 from B&H ... and it is 80x45 resolution. Postage stamp video.

80x45 resolution looks like this:

vVAHqIq.png
 
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