LAS VEGAS—Drones overhead will soon be watching your body heat.
Best known for add-on thermal cameras for phones, Flir spun out five new products at CES today: two add-on smartphone cameras, two cameras for drones, and an upgrade to its C2 standalone thermal camera for professionals.
The wildest upgrades are the drone-mounted models. Flir has been in the military airborne thermal-imaging business for decades, marketing director Andrew Saxton said, and the new cameras "bring airborne thermal imaging to a group of consumers who have never had this before. It's the lowest priced thermal imager for a drone that's ever been available."
The $999.99 Flir Duo and $1,299.99 Flir Duo R work with any drone that supports GoPro devices. The Duo has a 1080p visual camera that records at 60 frames per second and can sync its video with a 160-by-120 thermal camera running at 9 frames per second. It records to MicroSD, and can be remote controlled with a phone. The more expensive model has calibrated temperature measurements, so you can tell exactly how hot things are getting.
This basically puts near-military drone surveillance capabilities in anyone's hands, fortunately without the onboard weaponry. Flir has less creepy explanations for what you'd so with this: they have a passionate user base among farmers, construction workers, contractors, electricians, and public safety inspectors, all of whom are interested in looking at the hot spots in buildings and landscape from overhead.
Flir shared indoor and outdoor images taken with its cameras, and the uses become clear. A live spot on an electrical panel jumps right out in infrared. A draft, in a room, glows blue. Hover over a house, and you can see just where the heat is leaking out.
Both cameras go on pre-sale today.
Phone Cameras Upgraded, Too
If you don't have a drone, Flir still has new cameras for your phone.
The third-generation Flir One thermal camera works like last year's unit. But it's cheaper than the previous unit, at $199, and it has an adjustable-height connector and a USB-C option to fit into newer phones and phones with cases.
"It's still a pretty revolutionary technology in a lot of fields, and we're exposing some people to it for the first time," Saxton said.
To help newbie thermal imagers discover more about the world in IR, the Flir app will now have a community feature where people will be able to reach out to other users and a selected panel of thermography experts for tips, Saxton said.
"We have people who have completed a class [as] licensed thermographers, and also internal Flir people," he said.
The new $399 Flir One Pro quadruples the camera's IR resolution (the same pro sensor is in the drone cameras.) "It really provides a cut above in terms of image clarity and detail," Saxton said. "This product is really more focused on the inspectors, contractors, and tech forward realtors."
The new cameras will be available later in the first half of 2017.
Since Flir has the new high-res sensor, the company upgraded its C2 cameras as well. The Flir C3 (pictured above) has an 80-by-60 IR sensor that combines with a 1,440-by-1,080 visual camera, along with Wi-Fi, a touch-screen interface, and picture-in-picture capability so you can compare images on the device. It'll cost $699.99 and come out later this year.
"The C3 takes a professional level of abuse," Saxton said. "It can be thrown in a toolbox, and knocked around on a center console."