The 4 Cheap thermal cameras of 2022

Let’s have a look at each product in particular.

FLIR ONE Gen 3

The Flir One Gen 3 is Flir’s cheapest thermal camera in their line-up, but it also provides great value. This is a smartphone thermal imager and thus it only has an infrared sensor, a visual camera and a tiny battery. The module itself is really small and light and you just plug it into your phone’s USB-C, micro USB or Lightning port.

That is why it its price is more attractive, because it doesn’t have a display screen, internal storage or firmware since those are already in your phone. That is why in general, a thermal imaging camera for smartphones is going to be much cheaper than the handheld infrared thermal imaging cameras. And it makes sense in some ways because for example, the color screen on your phone is much better than what you’re going to get on any IR thermal imager.

The thermal sensor has an 80 x 60 IR resolution which adds up to 4800 pixels in total. Along with that, the app on the smartphone also uses MSX image enhancement technology which overlays the thermal image and the visual image using what can probably be considered the best thermal overlay algorithm on the market. The thermal sensor has a +/-3° C accuracy and a 0.15 ° C sensitivity and another big advantage of this camera is that it stores all the radiometric thermal data inside the JPG images.

The biggest drawback of this inexpensive infrared camera is the short battery life, but otherwise this is a true bargain. Its bigger brother, the Flir One Pro thermal imager camera sells for double the price, but if you take into consideration its higher resolution and extended app features, it still classifies as a low-budget camera, but with great specs.

Seek Thermal Compact

The Seek Thermal Compact is the second low-cost thermal camera for Android and iPhone which we’ll be reviewing and this one may be considered an even better bargain and here’s why: The thermal sensor on this device can output an IR resolution of 206 x 156, totaling 32,126 thermal pixels, more than 6 times what the Flir offers.

Its thermal scope extends from -40 to 626 °F (-40 to 330° C) with a thermal sensitivity of 0.07 °C and a much higher detection distance of up to 1000 feet. So how does this camera manage to have much higher specs, comparable to the more expensive Seek Reveal for the same price as the Flir camera? The answer is simple: All you get is a thermal sensor, no battery and no visual camera. The Seek Thermal app uses your phone’s visible light camera and as you would expect, because the two will be quite far apart, you often find yourself having to realign them.

The app offers multiple color palettes and custom adjustments like emissivity and reflected temperature, there is plenty of customizability for even the more advanced users. But it is worth it because it is impossible this is the lowest price you will find for this number of pixels.

Flir TG165-X

Now we will move on to cheap handheld thermal cameras like the Flir TG165-X. This is a camera that is meant to be used by HVAC inspectors, plumbing technicians or electricians. It is built inside a tough enclosure which is IP54 rated for being waterproof and dustproof.

It can measure objects in a temperature range from -13°F to 572°F (-25°C to 300°C) with a 0.07 thermal sensitivty and a very high +/- 1.5 °C accuracy, making it the most accurate out of all the cheap thermal imaging cameras we listed here. The sensor provides a thermal resolution of 80 x 60 with 4800 thermal pixels in total and a 9Hz refresh rate.

The battery life is great too, because it offers 5 hours of continous thermal imaging and there are 4GB of storage space on the fixed internal memory, because Flir removed the SD card option that the previous TG165 had.

If you are a professional but you don’t want to invest too much money, then this is a great first thermal camera to use for temperature measurement.

PerfectPrime IR0001

The Perfect Prime IR0001 is the last cheap thermal camera which we’ll be reviewing here. It costs about 30% less than the TG165-X but the specs are also trimmed down. Its infrared sensor only provides a 32 x 32 IR Resolution with a +/- 2°C accuracy and a 0.15°C thermal sensitivity.

There is an SD Card slot to store your photos, but no USB port to transfer them to your computer. The LCD screen is generous in size with a screen size of 2.4″. It doesn’t have a rechargeable battery and instead, it uses 4 AA batteries which should give you 6 hours of thermal imaging. So you can tell that they built this particular infrared camera to be as low-cost as possible.

If you have some extra money to spare and you can increase your budget, the same manufacturer also builds the PerfectPrime IR0005 which has a much higher resolution.