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> Thermal Cameras - I really thought every phone would have a cheap, mass manufacture thermal camera by now, so everybody could do "U so hot" jokes. Well they
by orbital-decay 3y ago
> Thermal Cameras - I really thought every phone would have a cheap, mass manufacture thermal camera by now, so everybody could do "U so hot" jokes.
Well they kind of do - you can buy a cheap tiny thermal camera for your smartphone. They aren't built-in in most phones because it's a specialty feature and it's not "cheap" cheap.
The thing with thermal cameras is that the progress has been artificially restricted by the arms regulations, especially in the US. That was a major factor behind them staying so expensive for years despite having the tech.
- teleforce 3y agoYep, remembered buying the thermal camera as a sensor for a project on a new type of rice cooking that is more effective in term of rice cooking quality, i.e. just the right amount of cooked rice texture in between conventional boiling (too moist: how modern rice cooker works) and steaming (too dry: use by some fancy restaurants). It turned out that the rice cooking heat overwhelm the thermal camera to provide any meaningful reading, and but later improvised it for detecting multi-point temperature readings from the face during the Covid pandemic. It's a cheap FLIR thermal camera with just OK resolution to be useful for imaging. The shipment was delayed due to the need to sign off form declaration for non-military application before importing.
- giantg2 3y agoIt's not just the arms restriction. Theres little restriction if is 9Hz or less. Easily commercially available but can't be exported to many places. You can get a 9Hz 120x80 FLIR Lepton module for about $200. Even stuff at higher frame rates isn't that had to get domestically. The real problems are lenses and volume. The low quality stuff like the Lepton use low quality silicon dioxide lens. The better stuff uses the expensive germanium. Cheaper zinc selenide can be used with good effect but has health hazards under some conditions. Then there's a small market (maybe 1M Leptons sold is considered high volume) with really one manufacturer (Teldfyne FLIR).
- atleastoptimal 3y agoEven if it weren't restricted, what is the advantage to the average consumer? What benefit does a thermal camera offer that would make it being built in as a standard phone feature economically justifiable?
- orbital-decay 3y agoThe ability to see the temperature of your surroundings has an infinite amount of utilitarian uses. And certainly an LWIR module is far more useful than a macro lens module many phones have just because it's cheap. Especially if it's fused with visible spectrum, NIR, and ToF/LIDAR.
- latexr 3y ago> The ability to see the temperature of your surroundings has an infinite amount of utilitarian uses. That doesn’t answer what they are, which is the question in your parent comment. If you could give a few good examples, it would advance the discussion.
- galdosdi 3y ago- Cooking and baking - Troubleshooting car trouble
- NavinF 3y agoSpotting weak points in your home's insulation is one of the obvious use cases. Moving some heavy stuff to the right areas can really cut down on HVAC losses. A more industrial use case is figuring out what parts of a machine are running dry
- araes 3y agoHere's ref from another post that shows why someone might want a thermal camera phone (thank you @emmelaich). Also, they're actually available in a $500 camera phone. Check out the MSX and AlphaBlending in an automotive mechanics shop. https://www.catphones.com/en-us/cat-s62-pro-smartphone/ https://www.catphones.com/en-us/cat-s62-pro-smartphone/