“Look! Heat is escaping from around those poorly insulated windows! And those circuits on the electrical panel are glowing—they must be overloaded! Why, I can even see in the dark, thanks to my thermal vision!” Then everyone applauds and says, “Gee, thanks, Captain Hot Head!” Fortunately, to get this power you don’t have to be bitten by a radioactive cat or get doused in magical lava. Instead, you just plug FLIR ONE into your smartphone.
Hey, superheroes use gadgets too, right?
FLIR ONE, from FLIR Systems Inc., is a module that connects to iOS and Android smartphones to provide real-time thermal images of minute temperature differences. This means that users can see in the dark, detect invisible heat sources, check temperatures and even see through fog or smoke. As in the fanciful examples above, this can be invaluable for checking home energy efficiency, but also for finding wet areas or leaks before they are visible, cooking, camping, watching for wildlife or a host of other activities.
With the accompanying app, smartphones can capture thermal still images or video, save them, or upload them to social media. FLIR ONE can even shoot panoramas or time-lapse video.
Other apps provide live streaming, cloud video recording, and motion detection capabilities, turning the phone into a portable security camera. Raw thermal imaging can be difficult to interpret, so FLIR ONE maps the thermal picture over the camera picture, defining the outlines of various details of the image.
The module runs off its own internal battery, preserving the battery life of the smartphone.
FLIR ONE is available with a lightning connector for iPhone or a micro-USB for Android for $249. The first-generation FLIR ONE for iPhone 5 costs $149.
This article was written by Jeb Brack from PSFK and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.
