# Thermal Seek XR unboxed!



## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

so here's my first experience with Thermal imaging cameras. I got the Thermal Seek XR from Amazon, who I was very happy to find out had a $60 rebate applied at checkout! normally $299 I got for $240! having read the reviews on amazon I saw that most/maybe all iphone cases seem to have trouble with the lightning jack port, so I also bought a 6' dockXtender cable, that cost another $32 I think it was.

My first impressions are that it's VERY VERY COOL! and I can't wait to play around with it more. I had already downloaded the iphone app and as soon as I plugged in the camera the app woke up and said Hey I wanna talk to the camera! so I said okay! and BOOM!, there was thermal imaging 2 seconds later! The next thing that happened was I clicked on the photo button and it stopped me and said you have to enable that in the settings, and it provided the settings link, so I slide that over to okay, the camera can take photos and BOOM! taking pics!

so far I haven't read anything about controlling the camera or the app, I know that there's a lot of versatility built into it, this is just the raw first time user experience.

pro/cons

Pros:

super simple setup and typical intuitive iphone app interface walking through menus.
it's freaking cool! I love the detail and right from the box it just... "worked"
it comes with a little plastic case that one of the amazon reviewers said he submerged for 2 hours in a bucket and no water leaked in, he also said it floats even with the camera inside
cons:

As also mentioned in a few of the amazon reviews, the port jack on the camera is simply ineffective trying to use the camera with a the phone when in a case, my phone is in a 2 piece case, a thin rubber layer with an external plastic shell, which I hadn't considered "bulky" by any means but the camera can not work with that.
Using the port extender cable had some problems, it lost contact with the camera several times, the cable seems very sensitive to the jack and I think that's at the phone to cable side, not the cable to the camera side.
without the camera attached directly to the phone you have to think about how your orienting the camera lens and what the photo will show, it may be off by 90 or 180 degrees (if you care about that)
operating the phone and the camera while holding the camera externally is much more awkward, because if it were snugly attached to the phone one hand could hold the device and the other could do things like adjust the lens focus and operate the phone app controls.
I don't have a tremendous amount of confidence in the supplied plastic case, I absolutely believe the reviewer, that it may be water proof forced submerged in a bucket, and float even with the cam, but it's not rugged and sturdy. You would not want this in your back pocket or in a BOB pocket that might get clobbered if you fell, slipped, dropped the pack, etc. my solution is that I have a pelican 1010 micro case that I won on ebay for... free? I don't remember, it was like $8 + free ship or something. This case would hold 2 of these cameras inside their provided case. so I have some spare room for something else, perhaps I'll buy the shorter version of the jack extender cable and stuff it in there as well. The little pelican case was a disappointment because it turned out to be too small for what I wanted it to do, but now it's absolutely perfect, it just needed a different job to do!

There is a solid jack extender that looks to be 1/2" or so, and I think I'll go buy that and try that instead of the 6' cable for day to day use. the 6' cable still has utility purposes so I wont be returning it, but the solid extender should be much more convenient in this application.

another thing I'm going to check, I'm gonna get my scope cleaning brush out of my range bag and clean that port, I remember one of my guys at work having problems with his phone taking a charge and he used a brush to check the port and all kinds of pocket lint came out and then it worked perfectly again... I've had this phone for... I don't remember if its been 1 or 2 years but that could certainly be the case for me too which would help with that "con" bullet above that the cable lost connection. I'm not ready to throw the cable connector under the bus yet until I check that port is cleaned out.

And here are the photos! (it's worth mentioning this is really without playing with any of the focusing and various heat image coloring tools available, so these could be a lot better with some adjustment on type of pic vs. what the pic is about, also, this was me holding the camera trying to get the pic and keep my hand stead and use the same hand holding the phone horizontally use the picture button. I expect to help solve some of that trouble with the jack extender I mentioned above.

my cat









okay sorry about this one, it's tilted 90 degrees but really doesn't matter, the point is that single red speck in the middle is a dove sitting on a phone wire from about 30 yards away.









The grill of the F150 after sitting about 45 minutes or so from getting home from the grocery store









for giggles, cold metal object against ambient cool temps. in this case a propane cylinder









a rabbit in a cage, again skewed 90 degrees, sorry.


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## bigg777 (Mar 18, 2013)

Dakine, those are an excellent example of the images that the SeeK Thermal XR are capable of capturing. I have had one for about 6 months and although I rarely use it, it gives mere humans like us thermal imaging capabilites hitherto unavailable for less than thousands of dollars.

This tool is a force multiplier that few civilians have and that makes it very valuable in a TEOTWAWKI scenario.


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