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Comment by colincooke | Hacker News Reader

As someone who has used FLIR cameras, and other industrial imaging systems I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand the continued concentration of specialist camera tech is bad for the market (FLIR a few years ago acquired point grey [0], a competitor). On the other hand given my poor experience with FLIR systems (bad software, bad interfacing) if that continues it might be a good opportunity for a newcomer to shake things up.

[0]: https://investors.flir.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...

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Appreciate you sharing your experience -- I've been considering a FLIR cam, did you find a better alternative?

there are none...

Yeah there is nothing comperable. For those with infared needs we're mostly stuck

https://thinklucid.com/

This is a new company created by a bunch of ex- Point Grey engineers who left FLIR. They're worth keeping an eye on.

Seek Thermal is an alternative provider for thermal cameras: https://www.thermal.com/

I like how their phone accessory Seek Compact camera is advertised as having “< 9 Hz frame rate.” I’m sure it’s fine but that’s a strange way of listing it.

That's actually a "feature" for IR cameras because 9+ FPS brings it into a different category for export control.

Huh, interesting! It makes sense in that context.

Having never tried one of these, I wonder if they take that slow camera stream and do higher framerate image stabalization on the phone to make it less jerky when hand-held.

There's also i3system/ThermalExpert: http://www.i3-thermalexpert.com/

Not really. GP’s remarks about software quality are spot on.

If your ready paying your camera the price of a small car, Xenics has a few alternatives that work well. They also have a support team who replies to your questions.

It's important to note that some technologies (Micro-bolometers, InGaAs) have export restrictions due to applications for weapons systems, etc..

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