An honest review of the Seek Thermal Compact.

The Seek Thermal Compact is Amazon’s best-selling thermal camera. So we decided to give you our Seek Thermal Compact review with in-depth details and everything you need to know.

PROS: High-resolution, iPhone & Android versions, great thermal sensitivity, video recording, waterproof case

CONS: Not as much detail as you would expect from the high IR resolution.

Product	Type	Resolution	Battery capacity	Waterproof	LCD screen	Price
Seek Thermal Compact	Smartphone	206 x 156	No	Yes		Click for more info
Seek Thermal Compact PRO	Smartphone	320 x 240	No	Yes	No	Click for more info
Seek Thermal Reveal	Handheld	206 x 156 pixels	10 hours	No	2.4″	Click for more info

Seek Thermal Compact Specifications

Seek Thermal Compact – Specs & Review

The Seek Thermal Compact is a thermal camera that attaches to your smartphone. It comes in 3 different versions with identical specs but with different connectors: Micro-USB and USB-C for Android phones and Android Tablets and one with a lightning port for iOS devices (iPhone and iPad).

One of the most problematic parts is that the port is fixed in one direction, so basically if your phone’s micro-USB port is facing the other way, it will end up facing towards you. This is a problem just with the micro-USB because the USB-C and Lightning ports don’t have this issue. Note: You have to choose the one for you before you buy it because the connector is not interchangeable.

Seek Thermal says that it can see up to a 1000 feet away.

We like to go more in-depth with our reviews, so we will be doing an overview of the Seek Thermal app that you need to download from the Play Store or App Store depending on your version.

The app looks great, it has a very simple interface with a photo capture button and video recording button.

You can choose between 9 color palettes. There are the black and white palettes, Iron, Cool, Amber, Indigo, Tyrian, Glory and Envy palette.

For measuring the temperature, you have a few modes available. The first one is without any temperature reading, there is another one where it measures a single spot, one where it shows you the highest and the lowest temperature simultaneously on the screen and the final one is something that is very very useful and we haven’t noticed on many cameras: It shows you the temperatures below or above a certain threshold that you can set an adjust. You can select the mode and here is where things get interesting but also tricky. It doesn’t have a visual camera and it uses your phone’s camera for visible light. You can drag your finger across the screen to have both the IR sensor and the camera in view, but there is a big image registration issue because obviously they are nowhere near aligned. So we looked for a an image registration option and there is one. You can double tap to go into alingment mode and actually pan and magnify the images until they align. Fantastic.

It goes without saying that you can adjust the time and date , the measurement unit between Fahrenheit and Celsius but you can also change the aspect ratio, whether or not to add the radiometric metadata to the picutre and there is an image smoothing option.

Seek Thermal Compact – Thermal imaging quality

In our review we put a large focus on image quality. Let’s have a look at the infrared sensor: It has an IR resolution of 206 x 156. With a total of 32,126 pixels it destroys its competition in its price class that has an average number of pixels at about 10,800. With 3 times the amount of data in the picture you will be able to capture far more details and this is something that we like and we think is important.

The frame rate is great as well with a 9Hz refresh rate. That means the image gets updated 9 times per second. Fun fact: The US Government doesn’t allow manufacturers and users to export cameras with a frame rate higher than 9Hz without a license.

Another great feature is the fact that it has a manual focus mode which is something that very few thermal cameras in this price class have.

Because it uses an Android or iPhone app, it can capture photos and videos. The photos are captured in TIFF format and the radiometric data is saved for every pixel as a 32-bit number.

Seek Thermal Compact – Temperature Range, Accuracy

The thermal sensitivity is 0.07° C, again another very strong point for this camera because its competitors can only reach 0.15. Here you need to remember, lower is better because the lower the value, the smaller the difference in temperature needs to be in order to trigger a change in the measured value.

The temperature range is very wide. It can work in drastically cold conditions starting from -40 degrees. The high end is 330 degrees. This means you can use it to check insulation on freezers and ovens and it will also work well if you use it for an HVAC inspection. Roofing, plumbing, electrical inspection, all of these should be a breeze given the temperature measurement range.

Seek Thermal doesn’t specify the accuracy of its thermal sensor, but you can safely assume a value of around +/-2° C. The field of view is pretty basic at 36 degrees.

Seek Thermal Compact – Battery life & Memory

The camera doesn’t have any kind of internal storage because it uses your phone’s storage. And it is a great idea because you are likely to have much more space on your phone.

The best part is that it doesn’t have a battery either like the Flir One camera which just has a 45-minute battery that created more problems than it solved. It uses your phone’s battery as it should.

The camera itself is not waterproof or dustproof however, it comes with a waterproof case in the package, so we can technically call it semi-waterproof, because you can’t use the camera with the case, so it is only for storage.

All the data is sent to your phone’s LCD screen and this is one of the big advantages of thermal cameras for smartphones, they make use of an excellent screen instead of just putting a tiny low-resolution screen like you get on a handheld thermal camera.