Seek ThermalCW-AAA Compact-All-Purpose Thermal Imaging Camera for Android USB-C

My experience with this *Seek Compact* version of the camera put my fears to rest and I'm thrilled!In 2020 I air-sealed my attic & basement rim joists. I then discovered that exterior insulation (under the vinyl exterior) was poorly installed. I looked at 6 more houses in other communities and found the same result...i.e. look "under the hood" of your house and you're likely to find crummy workmanship that reduces your energy efficiency.I want to kill drafts and save $$ heating/cooling my house (and my kids houses). Where to focus my effort? A thermal camera would help, but I can't afford a pro camera. So for 2-3 weeks I read dozens of reviews on affordable thermal cameras. This Seek camera stood out due to the many favorable reviews. I favored the Seek over its nearest competitor because Seek has the higher pixel count. I did hesitate 'cuz of reviews reviews saying: image quality is terrible; the camera won't work unless you register; the camera steals information. But some excellent reviews addressed these issues for me, so now I'll add my experience. It may help others who'll consider this for future purchaseAPP ACCESS TO PHONE:I did NOT need to give the Seek app access to my phone. I did NOT need to register the camera. Here's what I did. I dug up my 2014 LG G3 phone (no SIM card). I charged it, connected to a guest network, snapped the camera into the phone port and I installed the Seek Thermal app. Pop-up windows appeared asking for access to camera, photos, mic. **I denied access**. To my delight, the thermal camera image nevertheless appeared and I was quickly seeing images! Yes the Seek focus knob is a little tricky. It requires patience. When you change the focus knob you need to wait 2-4 seconds for the image to update. If you're not patient the focus knob could appear to be useless. I also adjust my range further/closer to the target of interest as part of my focusing process. Well, in less than 5 minutes I was getting the hang of it and could easily recognize my thermal images. This was especially true when I switched the color palette. For me, 'amber' screen images were very clear.Here's the limitation in my strategy. Because I denied app access on my phone I couldn't save thermal images as I walked around my house. For many uses that doesn't matter. Looking for a hot, or cold or wet spot? There it is - problem identified and you never needed to grant the app phone access or register the camera. But if you're surveying areas in your house like I am (for work when Spring returns) it could be cumbersome to record/diagram/inventory all the needs. You probably already saw that I attached pictures to this review, so yes, took the next step and gave the Seek app access to storage on my old LG G3. Then I could walk around cataloging areas that need work. When I stopped using the camera I disconnect it from the phone, powered off my G3 and put them both in a drawer.CAMERA FIT:I bought the older micro USB style. It snapped into my phone and is a very rugged connection. There's no danger of the camera falling out even if I shake the phone. It would require dropping the camera or solidly smacking the phone on something to dislodge the camera. I did have to remove the hard-shell case and rubber cover from my LG phone to fit the camera, but this is a minor issue.BATTERY LIFE: I agree that the camera is a battery drain. I walked around with the camera on for ~30 minutes and my phone battery went from 98% to 62%. Your experience will differ. For sure my 5+ year old G3 phone battery is nowhere near its original 3000mAh. May be best for you to guess you'll get an hour of power before your phone will need juice.Temperature accuracy:I brought a pot of water to boil on my stove and viewed thru the Seek compact camera. The imaging spot jumped around due to the rigorous boiling, and was reporting temperatures of 207-210 degF. Or, when I image a person, the camera shows readings of 96-97 degF. These are both more than good enough for the current and expected work I plan with this camera.IMAGES (attached)One pic is my fireplace. You can see logs in the fireplace. The heart-shaped glow centered above the fireplace is a hanging wreath at room temp (bright). You can see the horizontal mantle, the candles on the mantle and even draped decoration. Lower left corner reading of 78F is the edge of a charging plug.Another picture is of my front door - poor insulation around the door perimeter. The door window showed 57F. I have clear heat-shrink plastic insulation covering this window. The thin plastic insulation might be invisible to the Seek camera and it might be reading the temperature of the inside surface of that window. The high temp reading in the lower right corner is from an adjacent heat register.3rd picture shows exterior wall next to my kitchen sink. Can you see the dish-drying rack, a coffee filter cone and a wall plug and power cord on the right? What troubles me is the dark blob that's about in the center of the pic. It's . the light/disposal switches. Even though I previously insulated that plate with 'foam pads' from a big box store and later w/Great Stuff, it's still really cold. The cold even 'flows' down the wall and chills my sink counter. The Seek compact reveals that there's ~6" x 4" section in the wall cavity that's missing insulation. The camera revealed 3 other exterior wall outlets in my kitchen with the same missing insulation defect.4th picture is a section of exterior wall. Maybe you can ID what it shows without my description and then decide for yourself if the image quality from the camera is useful.I'm very happy with the performance/price ratio. Its' working really well and I anticipate getting lots of data that will direct my work to make my house more comfortable, less costly, and more environmentally green. Thanks again to the positive detailed reviews from people before me. Good luck to those of you considering this Seek compact camera..

I've been using thermal imagers professionally for about 30 years. This Seek unit isn't anywhere close to a state-of-the-art military/tactical, laboratory or commercial unit today. But, for a cheap, tiny plug-in for the bottom of my new Android phone, it's extremely impressive - I would have thought it had been delivered from an alien spaceship less than 10 years ago (By comparison, I've been expecting real smartphones since before the Apple Newton). I haven't really used its new near-price competition, the new FLIR C2 or the 2nd gen FLIR One extensively yet, but I'm far more impressed with this unit than the first generation FLIR One (iPhone 5 caddy form factor). Last year, I was impressed enough with the original FLIR One that I nearly bought an iPhone 5 just to get one (as much as I like and respect FLIR, I'm glad I decided to procrastinate).First, the image resolution: if you're used to multi-megapixel digital photo cameras, forget about it - that's not what you're getting with the Seek, or any other thermal in a price range less than a Tesla (or two or three, or twenty). Thermal is about 20 years behind that, dollar for dollar (image worse than the first Nikon digital I bought back in '93-'94). However, the resolution is about four times what you'd get with the 1st gen FLIR One's Lepton imager. The Seek image is very, very pixelated, and the long time constant video averaging requires one to hold it it very steady or the image will smear (think 1/4 - 1/2 second hand-held still exposure steady on a conventional camera). Unlike FLIR's visual/thermal overlay (patented MSX), Seek requires you to swipe back and forth between the thermal and the camera's visual camera images in the app. You can capture visual or thermal, or half and half, but not one on top of the other. The result is a better thermal image and a better visual image on the Seek that may not look quite as good as the FLIR's MSX overlay as a captured snapshot. Some of my colleagues think the FLIR MSX approach is better at this price point. I disagree for now, but I can understand their argument.Having a pretty low general opinion of the current state of what passes for software engineering, and even lower of Android apps, I can say that the Seek app is better than most Android apps I've used, especially at this level of maturity and adoption (its adoption isn't even a rounding error compared to a Google app). It installed cleanly on my new Moto G 2nd gen with Lollipop (the cheapest smartphone platform I could find that might support it, as my previous Nexus 4 would not). It hasn't crashed or locked-up, and it cleanly sends captured images to G-mail or Bluetooth. The visual/thermal swap feature is useful, as are the various color palates ("Iron" looks cool on ads, and in reports, but I've always used gray scale for serious work). I don't like the inability to set gain or freeze the AGC (something the new FLIR's app can apparently do), but I can live with that at this price point (for the time being). Thermal differential sensitivity in a low contrast scene seems to be pretty good - I'll take Seek's claim of about 0.1 degrees C as about right. I don't expect this to be a calibrated radiometer, or to use it as a substitute for a high quality imager for point medical screening, so I'm not going to get wrapped-up with actual vs. reported temperature values in the app (and no one wants to read a discourse on emissivity variations). I hope Seek (and FLIR) will have emissivity adjustments and calibration methods in the not-too-distant future (and some education, as I see a lot of misunderstanding and inflated expectation in some of the posts/reviews).As a usability note: I lucked out with the Moto G 2nd gen; it wasn't listed as "supported" when I bought it, although the 1st gen G was, as was the Moto X, 1st and 2nd gen. I also lucked out that the USB is oriented in a way that the Moto's visual camera is pointed in the same direction as the Seek, so that a back-and-forth overlay or split is easy. Not sure I'd be quite as happy if I found that I had to use one of the extension USB cables to orient it with one hand, while holding the phone with the other.Finally, the imager comes with a cute, really well-designed and constructed hard little carrying case. I can thrown it in my briefcase, backpack or cargo pant pocket, and not even think about it. Nice touch!Bottom line: for those with a realistic understanding of the current state-of-the-art, this is amazing. If you want to get into the world of thermal imaging at a really reasonable price point, or you're just looking for a cool toy that's about the same price as a high-end 802.11 AC router, it's worth giving this a try. If you wait six months or a year, there will probably be something better. But, you'd probably still be using a typewriter and a Western Electric phone if that was the #1 consideration.

Im very happy with this camera. The pictures show how well my radiators are heating up. The vertical red line is the steam riser inside my wall. Fuzzy? yeah. This isn't a photograph. It's a thermograph. I use this for analyzing heat differences. I find where heat is leaking out of my house, heating systems and even for finding shorted electronic components. It's small and comes with a small case when you're not using it. The camera app works well with my iPhone and is easy to use and capture images. This unit is limited to phones or iPads that have lightning connectors. My only complaints, it won't fit when you have a case on your phone. You have to remove the case to use it. (I have an old iPhone 5 that I use it with no case) There is a function in the app to show the image from the sensor and the phones camera. It's a nice idea but bad in function. They don't match up at all, so pretty much worthless. The other functions in the app work well. Good for the price and useful for the non professional.