Seek ThermalCompactPRO XR – Long Range Thermal Imaging Camera for Android USB-C

On Gxxgle Play many users complain about SEEK THERMAL requesting too many permissions like permanent location, microphone access etc.The solution for this is searching internet for the last version that does not ask all these: 1.9.5. This version works fine with my OnePlus 5T via OTG compatible micro USB to USB C adapter and also direct to a Xiaomi Redmi 4X, both running Android 9. Use versions not found at GP store at your own risk, after scanning with appropriate tools,

One would think that with the super high resolution and the price, that this camera would be the one. I received it, stuffed it in the camera slot and was truly amazed at the app and interface. The features were just unbelievable. Yet, something was wrong. No matter how many different color pallets that I tried, I just couldn't get any clarity. I had no idea what I was pointing the camera towards. Unless I had the side by side feature on, there wasn't enough clarity with the infrared by itself to even know what I was seeing. I was used to the other brand with it MX technology where the two camera lenses work together. I get it. This one doesn't have that technology. But I had previously purchased another less expensive thermal camera known as the tiniest infrared camera in the world, the size of a nickel. That had extreme clarity and I couldn't understand why something that cost so much more with so much more resolution, could not provide a distinct clear picture on my camera screen. So, I used this product on a few other smartphones to see if there was a difference in clarity. There wasn't. Disappointed that I shelled out over 550 clams, I asked for a refund because I was past the exchange date. Amazon and the seller we're both first class. It took close to a month to finally get the money back on my card, but that was understandable. I immediately purchased that big clunky handheld Android 11 Topdon product that also has multiple features other than infrared. No regrets.

This is my third Seek Thermal Compact. We love it better than the stand alone Thermal camera for Bigfoot adventures because of its range, and the fact that we can take videos. We can also turn the camera around to face us while using the galaxy S10+! Well worth the money for outdoor adventures and wildlife viewing.

The Seek Compact thermal cameras (XR and non-XR) have a true thermal sensor resolution of 206 x 156 pixels, and are remarkably cheaper than other thermal cameras with a similar resolution. I have never used any other thermal camera, but I have read comments by people who do also have other thermal cameras, who observe that the Seek image has more noise. I guess you would expect something to be better if you paid three times the price, so I didn't deduct any stars for the noise. I have attached a couple of images (a person and my UPS) showing what the camera can do. Note that I probably didn't get the focus quite right; I found it surprisingly difficult to tell exactly how well I had focused.You can't tell by looking at these images, but in fact the temperatures reported are out by 6°C. Under other circumstances (after briefly reviewing a recorded and image and then returning to measuring) my camera reported temperatures as much as 8°C below reality at room temperature. The image also became very noisy and developed a halo effect. Seek specify that between 0°C and 100°C the camera should be accurate to within ±5°C once it has warmed up, so my unit was clearly defective, and I ended up returning it (a process which Amazon made very painless). I have based my "star" rating ignoring the numbers reported, and ignoring the strange state my camera entered after a warm restart to measuring.In case it helps anyone else who happens to receive a defective camera, I have included some images showing the problems I experienced. Firstly, after spending a few seconds in the gallery and then returning to measuring, and looking at a surface of uniform temperature, I got an extraordinarily noisy image with a halo. After a few minutes this settled down to a somewhat noisy halo with marked vertical stripes. The final image shows a cup of warm water that was sitting on a floor of uniform temperature. As you can see, these last three images are nowhere close to the quality of first two.My main criticism (and the reason I deducted one star) would have to be the app. It does not allow the user to apply any calibration, so even if you know the temperate of something in the image you can't force the camera to report it correctly. It can report the temperature at the center of the image, or the highest and lowest temperatures in the image, but if you are interested in more than one point that is not an extreme then you are out of luck. You also cannot specify the range of temperatures or even lock the range so that you can get multiple images with the same temperature scale: the scale always automatically adjusts to the highest and lowest temperatures visible. If you just want to locate a hot spot the app is fine, but if you want images for use in writing up a report it is a bit limited.For the record I have discussed my problems with other owners of Seek Compact cameras (XR and non-XR) and some of them have reported that they are getting accurate temperatures and an almost immediate return to good images after resuming measuring. I presume defective units like mine are rare, and I would have been very happy with it if I had always been able to get images like the first two and if the reported temperatures had been close to accurate.

I have to say, Seek makes a high quality product that is built to last for years providing that you keep it in it's case when you are not using it. It's simple to use just download the app from the Google Play Store or from Apple, plug the camera into the USB port grant the permission to use the camera and start taking thermal imaging videos and pictures in seconds. I bought my first one in 2016 then another one in 2017 before buying this one in January 2023. They just get better. They are not cheap but if you need to see a wedding ring in the drain pipe before you take the pipes apart or you need to see inside of the wall or if you want to watch your own heart beat as it happens this is the perfect thing to do it with. There's so many wonderful things that you can use this camera for. If you are using it professionally it will pay for itself the first or second time you use it. It's amazing how many surprising things you can do with it. It's durable, dependable, and easy to use producing high quality pictures and videos. I highly recommend all of the Seek Thermal Imaging Line of Video Cameras. "Pro's trust Seek Thermal Imaging Video Cameras for all their needs and so can you."

This was a huge let down. I wanted to love this product but it really disappointed me. Just to be clear, I am reviewing the most expensive variant, the UQ-AAA Compactpro for Android (the one with the red color around the lens). I want to be clear on this because it could be easy for someone to think my comments are related to the cheaper versions... since they look so similar.I have a Note 9, so I knew I needed a high end (not the cheap ones you can find) adapter to go from the device's Micro-USB to the newer USB-C that the newer phones have. I also knew I didn't want to be constantly taking my heavy duty case off the phone, so the adapter made tons of sense all around. While inconvenient, that was really on me and not the product. However, I went through 3 different adapters and couldn't get it to work with my high end Note 9 (product fail #1) despite the website indicating that with an adapter, USB-C phones should work. Plan B was to use my perfectly working Note 4 which has a Micro-USB port. So after taking the Otterbox case off, it took forever for the app to recognize the camera (product fail #2) with a phone that was supposedly fully compatible. When it did, the picture quality was really bad. It was very hard to make out any shapes or outlines unless the temperature gradient was significant (like a human, animal, heat vent, etc.). I came to realize that the missing "visible spectrum" lens that the Flir competitor uses is actually very needed here to make out objects in homes. Let me be clear THE PICTURES THIS COMPANY POSTS ON THE DESCRIPTION IN AMAZON ARE NOT REAL. I think that's my biggest gripe, are these blatantly misleading pictures that SEEK is using on the Amazon product pages. It shows very clear electical panels and industrial looking ductwork pictures with the temp gradient as well. YOU WILL NOT GET THAT QUALITY OF PICTURE. Without the second camera lens that the Flir product has, you only get blobs of color for 70 percent of the time.Once I had resigned myself to the lackluster picture... the next day the camera stopped giving correct temperatures. So now I have a really bad picture with temp readings that are complete nonsense. For example, I was attempting to see how much heat I was losing out of my gas fireplace, so I looked at it through the camera. It was telling me that the tile around the fireplace was 5-15 degrees farenheit (yes... I double checked to make sure it didn't mysteriously flip to celcius) but those temperatures weren't possible. It was about 38 degrees outside and 65 degrees inside, so there was no way for the reading to be correct. I moved it over to my hand and it showed about 80 degrees farenheit, but when I went back to the fireplace it went back to 15 degrees. I tried it on my son's room and everything in there hovered around 40-50 degrees, which again wasn't right. I reinstalled the app but nothing changed. I mean it's great in theory to have a -40 to 600 degree range, but when the product can't execute at room temperature who really cares about that right? I reached out to the manufacturer website and emailed them. Their response was the final straw that told me to send it back. They told me to check my security settings on my phone to make sure there wasn't an issue (didn't bother to explain to me what settings they were even referencing) and if not then to "talk to Amazon because it sounds like you may have a defective camera". Ya think? Since when does the manufacturer tell me to take it up with the store instead of fixing/replacing their product??? I was done with this company at that point. I packaged the camera up and sent it back less than a week after I received it. Piece of junk.Pros:- Its small and comes with a carrying case.Ok... that's it. That's all I can come up with. While it does have other potential advantages over the comparable Flir model, one of that matters because it doesn't actually work well.Cons:cons:-Horrible picture quality, even in the $365 top of the line model.- The app is absolute trash. It's not user friendly and is essentially one big sales pitch to get you to buy something else.- Temperatures are bogus and misleading- Website compatibility information is trash and isn't correct.Don't buy this product! I'll be purchasing a Flir top model once Amazon credits my account for the return. I should have gone with the industry leader to begin with.