I’m no stranger to PerfectPrime cameras – I’ve had several of them over the years and today I have the tiny IR501 in front of me – on my Pocophone X3 NFC. The link above will tell you all about the IR501 Multi-Point Dynamic monitoring Thermal Camera for Android Phones.
I went off to the Perfect Prime website (above) for the APP while plugging in the camera to the USB-C base of my phone – and minutes later I had (no effort involved) the IR camera running on my phone. After tapping the controls to invert the IR image and do a spot of aligning I was in business.
The App is suitably named and easy to find in the Playstore. Hey this is much easier than the last PerfectPrime plug-in camera… you can of course view phone camera, mix or IR camera and that is useful but I’m finding it easiest just to look at the IR camera – 206 x 156 px resolution is quite do-able.
I was asked if I wanted to play or STREAM the IR video – well, I’m not quite ready to stream my results yet -but at the bottom of this article is a PDF file they sent me about streaming from the device.
Below, you see screen grabs of my coffee etc. Other than alignment, no setup – very easy indeed. You can see in the photo on the left, I have the camera plugged into the bottom of my phone (and facing the other way though being USB-C I could have done it either way).
And here it is on the right – my almost empty coffee mug (and quite cool as I spent too much time writing and not enough drinking). Why is the front of my desk warm? Because I’ve been resting my wrists on it for the last hour while writing this blog. Behind the coffee cup you see th bottom of my screen,
As time goes on I’ll be using this around the house as it is January and we have quite a few heat leaks around the place – I’m counting on this device to help me identify them – see the automatic temperature point indicator?
I could of course go into the whole specification thing but I’ll instead point you back to the link at the top of this article – no, I’m not on commission and no I don’t get paid to do this but they did send me the camera to play with.
This is fun – I’m off to learn more about the IR501.
Seriously, take a look at their site, it’s a mine of information on the subject. I learned TONS from that site when looking at the other cameras in their range including eveything from phone add-ons to expensive upmarket stand-alone IR cameras.
The IR501 may not look like much stuck on the end of a phone but it’s doing a good job – simple to use as well.
Colours? As always I’ll point out that the colours you see are substitutions to give you a feel for the temperatures you are looking at. All PerfectPrime camera Apps allow you to use this default palette or any of a range of other colour mixes. If it suited your purpose, you could have a completely diffent range of colours – it’s a whole lot of fun and potentially very useful.
I’m having fun now… Different palette below and the rightmost image has the IR overlaying the phone image. See the kettle and my coffee cup which, though thick is NOT doing a terrific insulation job. Over on the left my wife pouring some hot milk into the cup.
What I’ve not shown but trust me, is the abysmal state of insulation around and on our front door – I had a look and though the door beams insulate well, the actual wood panels leak heat something CRAZY and as for the rubber seal at the BOTTOM of the door – I don’t even want to THINK about the heat loss. Given the state of our electric (air source) heating bill, had I bought this camera it would have repaid itself in no time – I’m off to work on doing a better job of insulation on the front door. Unlike the full size cameras I can keep this in my pocket with my phone as I wander around the place looking for leaks. That’s it for now.
Did I mention facial temperature measurement? How about covert body heat measurement while pretending to use your phone – check people around you for signs of elevated temperatures? Maybe, maybe not but there is a face detection feature in the APP 🙂
Oh, the APP: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thermalmore.perfectprime
And the streaming document I pointed out earlier…
The copy on the product page made me chuckle
> Measure the unfathomable, and analyze the improbable by providing thermal imaging and temperature measurements in a new way. Plugin the IR501 and download the app to start seeing thermal on your Android Phone.
Very ambitious!
Yup, I think part of that is the translation – Chinese ads for phones (Revolutionise your digital life) – amuse me – if you only have a digital life you’re in trouble – but I AM having fun with this add-on camera, I’ve had the rest and frankly carring another pocket full dsdoesnt appeal. I’m that way with cameras – I used to have all kinds of SLRs etc but in the heat of summer – I want to cary no more than my ID, some cash and my phone 🙂 but I digress.