Seek ThermalShotPRO - Handheld Thermal Imaging Camera and Sensor, Black

Disclosure: I bought this with my own money, and was not paid to do this review.Too Long; Didn't Read:If you're interested in a thermal camera 'specifically' then the Seek Shot Pro is worth serious consideration. If you are more interested in building reports and fitting into the Flir world, maybe you should think about the C2 or C3, but you will be taking a huge hit on every significant feature to be part of the mainstream. Honestly, this is a truly impressive device for the money!Background:Right off the bat I want to acknowledge that I am not a thermography expert. However, I am an individual who has been very interested in the field since I was a child (which was a minute or two ago), and when the original Seek Thermal (now the Seek Thermal Compact) came out for iPhone back in 2015 (finally a thermal camera at a price point I could manage to afford) I pre-ordered mine.It was both really cool and a bit of a letdown. The refresh rate (9hz) wasn't what I was accustom to from normal cameras, and between the resolution (206x156, 32 kilopixels) and the fact I wasn't used to working with thermal graphs (nor did it have any sort of mix mode) it was very difficult to workout what I was looking at. All the same, it proved to be an invaluable tool when troubleshooting in a verity of situations.For instance, when working with computer systems and you're concerned you are adequately cooling all of the various chips, instead of having to hand check each package and move to the next, you can easily sweep the camera over the area, and any potential issues will immediately stand out. Likewise with 3D printers. It was easy to see if any component might be overheating, or perhaps not getting hot enough. Then there were automotive applications. Basically though, most systems, be them mechanical, electrical, or structural, are thermally sensitive in one manor or another. It's really nice to be able to do a quick sweep with a thermal camera and pull your attention to potential trouble areas so you can spend more time finding a solution than looking for the problem.Impressions:Coming from the original Seek Thermal, which I was pleased with, I am truly blown away with this camera!Why?One of the things I never cared for about the original Seek was that I had to hook it up to an iPhone or an iPod or something. That made the entire process tedious. First I would have to have both devices with me. Then the dongle wouldn't fit while the phone was in the case. After I did what I had to to connect the two, I would have to fire up the app, and hope an iOS update or something hadn't broken the software. So I just resorted to using it with my old iPad I never update, so I could keep my expensive iPhone in its case, but that turned into another device I needed to have. Suffice it to say, there was a lot of friction in using the original Seek. That lead to me only pulling it out when I absolutely felt I had to do a thermal analysis of a situation, even then I'd put it off.So when Seek released a standalone thermal camera in a form-factor I liked (something about the size and shape of a quick-shot camera) I was very interested. The question then became, do I get the standard one or do I spend the extra money to step up to more resolution?With the resolution of the original camera, which was already class leading (206x156, 32 kilopixels), and is shared with the regular Seek Shot, I wasn't sure the extra resolution (320x240, 76.8 kilopixels) was really needed. I'm still not sure the extra resolution is "needed," as in, will allow you to do what you couldn't otherwise, but BOY IS IT HELPFUL! I took a look around at various scenes and instantly could understand what I was looking at! The extra pixels and the extra field of view (57* vs 36*) resulted in a HUGE improvement in scene recognition. What was previously a chore to understand was now effortless! Which of course greatly increases both the enjoyment of using the device as well as greatly decreases the time you need to make meaningful use of it. Also, if you want to share the results, it will be even more useful when sharing with people who aren't accustom to dealing with resolution limitations.So I think the 149% premium to step up to the Pro is certainly worth the 240% improvement in resolution, and the 158% improvement in field of view!How about the Seek Shot vs the Seek Thermal Compact? Well the difference in terms of price is 188%, but it's hard to do a simple comparison like I did between the Pro Shot and the standard Shot. I guess it depends on how much you use it. But then, the inconvenience of the Compact will encourage you to use it less, whereas the convenience of the Shot will encourage you to use it more. So you could argue that buying the Shot will help you recognize a better return on investment, as you'll use it more. Of course, if you simply aren't going to use it all that much regardless, why spend the extra? But if you're not going to use it much why buy it at all? There is also the fact that the Shot is a standalone tool which will never be out of date (that is rendered unusable). With dongles you are tied to smart device of some sort, and you better hope the physical interface doesn't change and that the required software continues to be available and functioning. Personally, I would steer away from a dongle solution if I could. It's a lot of risk (of losing functionality altogether) and a lot of extra friction in actual use (headache dealing with it).- UPDATE 9/4/19: There is a use case for the Seek Thermal Compact I didn't consider. You can place the Seek Thermal Compact on an extension cable, and decouple the camera from the screen. This can be useful is viewing hard to reach areas. Also, if you want to take selfies, or deal with other situations where you can't both see the viewscreen, and line up the shot. -What do I think of the UI? I think it's pretty straight forward and easy to figure out. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a higher end camera, but for the money, it's impressively feature rich. You can compare regions, do min:max, get area averages, adjust your coloring, they have a mixed mode (sort of like Flir MDX) but unlike Flir it's not as much of a requirement to make sense of the scene. The interface is a little slow compared to modern smart phones, but considering the fact the scene only refreshes at 9hz anyway (a limitation the uncooled microbolometer technology that this sort of passively cooled consumer price point requires) why spend the money on extra processing power to make the interface snappier (and decrease battery life by doing so) when the device is inherently not going to be fast anyway (as a limitation of the sensor)?Objections:Ok, so that's it for context. Now I want to address some of the concerns I've seen placed against this product.First is the statement that this product in inaccurate or has a lot of noise. (Separate issues, sort of, but related.) It's worth bearing in mind that this is a passively cooled high resolution high range thermal camera, and if that statement alone doesn't impress you, then you don't really understand how hard making something like that is!This camera gets compared to the Flir C2 and C3 (which the C3 was the same price before they dropped it to compete), these two cameras have a resolution of 80x60 or 4.8 kilopixels, which compared to the Seek Shot Pro with a resolution of 320x240 or 76.8 kilopixels, are only one sixteen the resolution! Which if you don't think that resolution matters, you could always get a point measuring heat gun! Of course resolution matters a lot in photography, even thermal photography, that is after all what actually produces a picture, the available array of points which form the image! If you don't feel it makes a difference go look for images on Google that are 80x60 and compare them to images that are 320x240, and see the difference that it makes.The next point to consider here is that the Flir sensor is only sensitive from 14f to 302f, and the Seek is sensitive from -40f to 626f. That's more than double the range. Not only that, it's an important range if you are working in automotive, or you want to inspect things in seriously cold weather. For instance, -12f happens where I live. If you wanted to watch a solder joint form (which happens between 360f to 370f).So why do I bring these two points up in regards to accuracy and noise? Because if you don't have a cryogenically cooled unit (big, heavy, and EXPENSIVE), it's very difficult to not bring noise in from the device itself (as it itself produces heat). Of course as you increase pixel density you increase the number of chances to get a false reading (noise) as you are taking a larger sample. As you increase the sensitivity of the pixels you increase the chances of them being disturbed by something unintended. This is just like any other analog system, increases in sample size and increases in sensitivity, lead directly to increased sensitivity to ambient noise. The same basic principles apply. Frankly, it's an engineering marvel that Seek was able to bring a thermal camera to market with these specs, at this price, with this performance, in this form factor! I'm afraid some noise is going to be part of the reality of using a device like this at this point in time (until some sort of break through occurs). But then, you didn't spend $500,000 for it either! Likewise, accuracy isn't going to be as good for a unit like this as it would be for a cryogenically cooled one.Another note on accuracy for this device. Though, (in my experience) I believe it is within its advertised +/- 2% range (or better) with its readings, I wouldn't buy a camera at this level (uncooled microbolometer) as a replacement for direct thermal readings where precision really matters. This is FAR more useful for getting an idea of what the heat is 'doing' in a system or for being able to survey a system, you know, get a "picture" of it. To that end, resolution, range, and graduation (the size of step between measurements) are FAR more important for producing that image, than absolute accuracy is. Just like how you can still make someone out in a photo, even when the colors are a bit off, or very off, so long as the image has good resolution and contrast. And I can tell you that "just" the 2.4x improvement in resolution over the Seek Thermal Compact made a HUGE difference in understanding the scene, and that is to say nothing of the 16x jump over the Flir C2/C3.People tend to complain about the 9hz refresh rate of the camera. That is a limitation of the techology, and Flir has the same limitation with their uncooled microbolometer tech. If you want a higher refresh rate be ready to drop some serious cash!- UPDATE 9/4/19: I discovered that the "Casematrix Waterproof Thermal Imager Case" works great for the Seek Shot Pro, despite the fact they don't mention it in the description. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074TVN21G -

The media could not be loaded. Have wanted a thermal camera for a long time now, and am glad something affordable came along. I uploaded a video showing where insulation appears to be missing behind the ceiling and walls in my house, and obviously I had to post cat pics. Lots of fun, very useful, and worth every penny, and I have hope for a future with even better quality imagery and more features.Some things I wish it had:A way to remote trigger without touching (and thus causing movement) or a burst shot option. The images are low resolution, and the signal-to-noise ratio can be bad, but if you've got a mount and can take several images in a row, those can be stacked to reduce the noise and improve quality a bit. The picture of my cat sitting in her bed was made using this technique. A self-timer might also be quite useful (and basic).Some mild disappointment:The camera will not take pictures very fast. It's something like one every 5 seconds or so. Videos also hitch at regular intervals. The camera makes a soft clicking or tapping noise at the same time the video hitches/lags/stutters (pick your verb). I don't know what's causing it, but presumably that's normal? And yes, the videos contain the hitches when played back. It's not just a display issue.Anyway, kudos to this Santa Barbara company for putting out an affordable and surprisingly good camera.

I originally purchased this wanting to inspect circuit boards for faulty components and I wanted to write this review as I found a very easy way to adapt this camera to take macro photos for inspecting circuit boards. Simply insert a 12mm diameter laser cutter focus lens (such as this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CMTGMN6) into the front of the camera and instant macro. The IR photo was taken with a 1.5" FL lens. The smaller the focal length (FL) the closer the camera has to be to the object and the bigger the object is in the camera. Now the fusion camera does not have a second lens, so the fusion won't work correctly, but is not needed as the IR image is clear enough that it is not needed.One complaint is that the USB-C port is really close to the threaded tripod mount. It is nearly impossible to use a normal tripod and have the USB-C cable connected at the same time. The other complaint is the app for iOS is terrible. The app replicates the basics of the camera interface, but does not allow landscape viewing of the stream, crashes all the time, locks up the camera.Also It is possible to open the stream using VLC on a computer. Once the stream is started once using the seekshot app connect your computer to the wifi of the camera, then open VLC player and start a new network stream with address rtsp://192.168.100.1/stream0 The key is you have to initialize the video stream from the app before you can connect VLC player.

The product has a nice, rugged, construction but it has issues with temperature reading and frame rate is bad.The thermal imager ranges everything about 6.7°C (20°F) too high. Every human is running a deadly temperature and I don't see any option to recalibrate temperature.Then the frame rate is so low that you cannot move the field of view and get accurate readings/view.I would think that at this price-point both thermal readings and refresh rate would be much better than actual.I may have received a somewhat defective product but Judging from other reviews I felt it unlikely there was any support mechanism to address this.If I ever purchase another thermal imager I would likely elect a more technically capable make/model because for having purchased the "Pro" model, it seems like I could get same functionality at half the cost in a USB-C plug-in.

Bought few days ago.. quality is very bad.. can’t see images properly.. all distorted.. they don’t refund or replace to new one ..

I bought the ShotPro for home inspections. The features are good. battery life is good enough to go through few inspections, if one is not keeping it ON throughout the inspection. TheThe response time is a bit slow. the wifi sync to the cell phone takes a long time. The visible light camera has very poor resolution. I am not an expert on cameras, but as a user, I think the SeekFusion may come out sharp if the visual light camera was at least 5 mega or higher. I find the touch screen not very sensitive, when one is so used to the smart phones touch screen response time.I would still recommend this product, if you are looking for a high resolution thermal imaging camera with a very economic price tag.

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Esteticamente bella, peccato non abbia mai funzionato: aperto il pacco la ho messa in carica come da istruzioni, collegandola ad un alimentatore di un Ipad. Il display si è acceso ed è apparsa l'animazione di batteria in carica, quindi l'ho lasciata lì a caricare ma al ritorno ho trovato il display spento e la macchina non ha più dato segni di vita (praticamente mi è successa la stessa cosa già capitata in una altra recensione). Al momento sono in attesa di sostituzione.EDIT: Macchina prontamente sostituita da Amazon, ma grande delusione: nonostante la risoluzione più alta rispetto ad una FLIR ONE Pro da 160x120 la qualità delle immagini è molto più scarsa. Il sensore è rumorosissimo e sia l'esposizione automatica che il sistema di sovrapposizione delle immagini sono di qualità molto molto inferiore alla FLIR ONE Pro che ha solo 1/4 della risoluzione. Evidentemente FLIR ha fatto un lavoro migliore negli algoritmi di processing delle immagini e in ogni caso usa sensori di migliore qualità. A titolo di esempio riporto la comparazione tra due immagini prese allo stesso momento con la ShotPro ed una FLIR ONE Pro che costa la metà (a voi ogni giudizio). Peraltro le immagini acquisite con la ShotPro NON sono radiometriche per cui è impossibile effettuare alcuna analisi a valle delle acquisizioni. In ultimo segnalo che il menu della macchina è molto lento e l'interazione con l'app ShotPro per lo streaming delle immagini sul cellulare (Galaxy Note 20) non funziona, pur avendo aggiornato il firmware della macchina all'ultima versione disponibile, datata 2019. In conclusione: un costoso giocattolo utile per analisi qualitative superficiali (p.es per trovare perdite o per capire dove passano i tubi del riscaldamento) o come gadget per vedere animali notturni, ma assolutamente inadatto ad un utilizzo tecnico o professionale. Prontamente restituita, e da oggi in poi FLIR tutta la vita.

Pros: Good value for your money compared to Flir. Records photos and videos. Better than Flir C2/C3 but not as good as C5Cons: Accuracy at room temperate understates by about 2 deg C, so not useful for checking human temperatures. Sensor is rather noisy and grainy. Wouldn't bother with the PRO version. Image fusion doesn't look as good as Flir.