Your iPhone is Now Your Thermal Camera

FLIR will have a device that converts your iPhone into a therm

Thanks to a heads up from Cliff Barackman and a repost from Jerry Hein we were alerted to an iPhone case that converts your iPhone into a FLIR thermal imager. We scoured the net to get all the details and reactions. read below.

This year FLIR has managed to shrink the same thermal imaging technology it sells to law enforcement and the military so that it fits inside an iPhone 5 case—letting us civilians share in the fun too.

Available sometime in the late spring or early summer later this year, the FLIR thermal imaging smartphone case will initially be available for the iPhone 5 and 5S and will cost $350. It features a built-in battery that will power the pair of cameras it relies on for up to two hours, and can also be used to charge your phone when you're not searching the forests for wild animals.

SRC: Gizmodo

Right off the bat, I can think of two types of people who might be interested in a $350 case that turns the iPhone camera into a thermal imaging camera: ghost hunters and home inspectors. And if you’re a home inspector who moonlights as a ghost hunter, well here’s your next purchase.

While big-boy thermal imaging cameras can cost thousands, FLIR has shrewdly concluded that maybe not everybody has deep pockets and maybe having a pocketable thermal imaging camera with you at all times would be kind of cool.

The FLIR One case leverages a special app to grab heat signatures and detect temperatures, and what you see on the screen can be captured as photos and video just like you’re using the iPhone’s built-in camera app.

The case itself doesn’t add too, too much bulk considering the functionality it adds, and it doubles as a backup battery if your iPhone battery runs low. A FLIR rep told me the battery pack will last four hours for powering the thermal camera, or you can re-route the power to your iPhone instead.

SRC: Time Magazine: Techland

The FLIR ONE iPhone case significantly ups the imaging powers of your iPhone 5 or 5s, making it into a thermal imaging camera that lets you see heat signatures from either live people and animals from up to 100 meters away, or from environmental sources including heating ducts, wall gaps and more.

Most of FLIR’s products to date are aimed at hunters and professionals, but this iPhone case brings an affordable smartphone-based thermal camera to the masses for the first time, the company told me at CES. The FLIR is $350, which might seem steep for a case with a built-in camera, but it’s actually around $750 cheaper than their least expensive standalone model currently available, and it provides an easy-to-use interface that anyone could quickly learn.

The app for the FLIR ONE offers numerous modes that interpret thermal data differently, with some showing many degrees of temperature, and others more clearly showing more or less binary differences between extreme heat, average temperature and extreme cold. Amazingly, it also picks up residual heat, like that left by a foot on a carpet for quite a while after a person was there.

SRC: TechCrunch

The new iPhone case is called the Flir One and it is designed for the iPhone 5 or 5S. With the case attached to the smartphone, the iPhone becomes a thermal imaging camera. The Flir One case allows you to see the heat signatures of people and animals from up to 100 meters away.

The camera will also show heat from things inside walls like heat ducts and gaps in a wall. The Flir One case is $350 making it much cheaper than the next cheapest thermal camera on the market. The camera sounds like some sort of tool out of science fiction.

It is said to be capable of picking up the heat left behind by a person on the floor after they walk by. Potential uses for the Flir One case include finding thermal leaks in your home or water leaks behind walls among other things. I could see this device being useful for hunters as well.

SRC: SlashGear