I've been wishing, over the years, that smartphones start expanding their vision capability to more than simply adding "megapixels". Yes, resolution is important, but I'd like to see different things added as well. High-speed video is one of the things that is being added lately, but there's lots more to be done - and Seek Thermal is about to show us just that.
Just like in the "handy cam" era we all were amazed by the "night vision" capability, I think we're on the verge of having a thermal vision revolution. Thermal vision has been around for a long time, but at a price that put it out of most people's reach.
The cheapest recent thing available was FLIR One ($350) but we need to do better if we want it to truly reach everyone. And that may be about to happen with this Seek Thermal that promises to add a tiny thermal camera to your Android and iOS device (via Lightning or microUSB), and for just $199.
We just need to be sure that this is indeed real and not yet another fraudulent/vaporware product (and truth be told, the fact that they use much higher quality thermal images and videos on their site, than what would be possible to get with the 206x156 pixel Seek Thermal camera, doesn't seem "right" to me).
But I do hope they're able to bring such a product to the market, and push thermal vision cameras prices down, to the point that, someday, maybe every smartphone will have a thermal vision camera just like they all have a regular camera today.
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