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FLIR One (2nd gen) review

The alien hunters in the 1987 film Predator helped make thermal imaging a household term. In the movie, the aptly named Predators could "see" their human prey — even in the dark — by using their thermal vision to detect the heat signatures they emitted.

Thermal cameras that allow you to see infrared light — the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that's invisible to the naked human eye — have been around for quite a while, but it's only recently that the technology has become small and affordable enough for regular folks who aren't involved with the military and professional services to consider buying one.

Last year, FLIR Systems launched the FLIR One thermal imaging camera for the iPhone 5 and 5S. The $349 two-piece case essentially turned your iPhone into a thermal camera, allowing you to see the invisible heat signatures that people and things emit. With the exception of a few small flaws, Mashable editor-at-large Lance Ulanoff loved it.

The company's back with a second-generation FLIR One camera and this time it'll work with more than just two iPhone models. It's also cheaper at $249.99.

The new FLIR One camera works with iPhones and iPads, and Android smartphones and tablets. The case-like design has been replaced by a smaller module that weighs a third as much and attaches directly to an iOS device's Lightning port or an Android device's Micro USB port. Unlike the first-gen model, the new FLIR One is more pocketable and easier to operate. It's a massive improvement, for sure.

Improved thermal scanning

The first-gen FLIR One took pretty good thermal images, but the new one takes even better ones. With the updated thermal sensor and VGA visible camera, the thermal images from the new FLIR One have four times the resolution (160 x 120) than the old model.

The new FLIR One works largely the same as the old one. With the FLIR One app loaded up and the FLIR One camera attached to your mobile device of choice (iPhone 6 in my case), you can get a thermal reading on anything it's pointed at.

It's really that simple. The warmer something is, the more yellow it will appear on the thermal image, and the cooler something is, the more blue it will appear. The temperature reader also lets you see the exact temperature of something, too.

That's one hot pot. Don't touch it or you'll get burned for sure. Image: Mashable, Raymond Wong

The FLIR One app still has the same modes that let you take still thermal images, videos, time-lapses and panoramas.

And here's what a thermal panorama looks like:

A thermal panorama shot from the second-gen FLIR One thermal camera. Image: Mashable, Raymond Wong

The gallery even lets you slide your finger up and down on your thermal images to see the regular picture underneath it. These so-called "thermies" are fun to look at, but I wish there was a way to save them as GIFs for posting online. Right now, the gallery doesn't even let you save or send the regular pic, only the thermal one. You can save the images by screenshotting them, but then they're not at original resolution.

As Ulanoff said in his review of the original FLIR One, the thermal camera doesn't give you X-ray vision like Superman. The camera can't let you see through walls or anything, but with it, you will get some quantifiable data that isn't always visible to your naked eyes.

The FLIR One can be used to evaluate situations such as detecting a gas leaks and spots (like indoor wiring) that are fire hazards. It can even be used at night on camping trips — for spotting animals hiding in the dark at close range. I tried the FLIR One at night in New York City, and while all the ambient light from streetlights and store signs threw the camera off, I could still make out some heat signatures for people moving in the far distance that I probably wouldn't have noticed in real life.

One big change on the new FLIR One is that you no longer have to calibrate the thermal camera before taking each pic — everything is now automatic and taking thermal images is truly point-and-shoot.

There are two things that still need more work. Booting up the camera is still a slow affair; it still takes around 10 seconds to fire up once you've got it plugged in and turned on. And battery life is also on the low-end: about one hour of usage.

Thermal apps

The new FLIR One is an impressive camera, but it's only as useful as what you can do with it. FLIR Systems released a software developer kit (SDK) for developers to noodle with last year, but the apps that are in development are mostly ones focused around home improvement and DIY-type projects.

FLIR Systems highlighted few FLIR One-supported apps such as Manything (iOS security monitoring), Zombie Vision (real-time zombie viewer), Everfave (something to do with discovering businesses and earning rewards), Comfort Tracker (identify home energy locations and recommends solutions for improvement and Infrahorse ("scans" a horse's body to look for possible health issues).

But the only app from that group I could test was Zombie Vision because everything else wasn't in the App Store or wasn't updated to support FLIR One yet. A FLIR spokesperson said the missing apps "won't be available probably until mid-July," but didn't give any guarantees for the timeline. FLIR senior vice president and chief marketing officer Travis Merrill also told me he expects Android to help accelerate developer interest.

Zombie Vision, a quirky $2 app that lets you point the FLIR One at person and see their skin turn green and their eyes turn red, isn't exactly worth the $250 for the camera.

The FLIR One paint app was bugging out. This is definitely not what my coworker's thermal image really looks like. Image: Mashable, Raymond

FLIR Paint, a fun app that lets you paint sections of a regular image with thermal heat points is super glitchy as you can see in the picture above and largely inaccurate. It clearly needs to be updated for the new FLIR One.

There are a few more such as the FLIR One thermometer, Thermal Scavenger Hunt and Thermal Compare, but none of these are particularly killer apps that would make me rush out and buy a FLIR One.

There will be more apps released later this year, I'm told, but at launch, it's slim-pickings outside of the main FLIR One app.

Military tech for peanuts

Thermal imagers are still mainly used by the military and professional security personnel, but FLIR is quickly turning the technology into something everyday people can use and afford.

The FLIR One is markedly better than the first-gen model. Not only does it work for iOS and Android, but it's also smaller, takes higher-resolution thermal images without manual tuning and is $100 cheaper.

It's still a niche product designed more for homeowners and professionals, but it won't be long before a company like Apple or Samsung figures out a way to incorporate this technology into existing smartphone cameras. And if developers run wild with the SDK, we could see some apps for things we haven't even thought of.

The FLIR One is available directly from FLIR.com starting today. Online stores including Apple.com, Amazon.com and BestBuy.com will sell the FLIR One in July and additional retail partners such as B&H Photo and Video, Home Depot, Cabelas, Scheels and West Marine will carry it by Q3. The Android version and Android SDK will both be out in July as well.