Caterpillar offers phone with built-in FLIR camera
catphones.com
catphones.com
The flir camera I would say I used most often at night for finding my dogs poop to pick up on neighbours lawns in the dark, but I used it on boats to find moisture, motorcycle engine seals to find gasket problems, found contractor fraud where they didn't bother putting insulation behind drywall, and places around windows for caulking to reduce heat loss, heat on horses legs that indicated inflammation, lack of current on wires in my basement. Mostly novelty, but handy.
The battery became too flaky to use as a regular phone, so I keep it in my toolbox and use it as a stud finder behind drywall and used to find where animals were getting into the attic of the house. Next test is for rim leaks on car tires. It has been a small time saver, and a fun conversation piece. But yeah, military thermal imaging to find dog poop at night was most common use case.
Someone explained to me it's more of a supply chain thing than planned obsolescence. Phone technology and batteries specifically have pretty short production lives - keeping a battery in production and in stock for long periods of time can be crippling to your product line when the competitors come out with 10% denser batteries every year.
I agree most company's have no incentive to do that. I think those incentives should be put in place though.
Actual disposable batteries (remember those?) have improved dramatically over the decades but you can still put a brand new AA battery loaded with the latest 2022 tech into a remote control from the 50s and expect it to work.
they have the same form factor, and they have not changed much over decades in capability and certainly not size.
Phone batteries do not do this - they are designed to fit in a certain (few) phones, and market change on phone sizes mean there is no standard size.
When phone batteries get higher density, then it's likely a readeoff between adding more other features and keeping the same battery size - and as other features change, so do battery needs. The rapid evolution of phone tech, in every aspect, makes it cheaper (and wiser) to re-eval each piece quickly, or you get beat in the market place.
Maybe in decades this will settle down, like it took for the disposable batteries to standardize over decades...
It would be nice if that wasn't the case.
I've seen power tools from certain companies adopt the same battery type across multiple of their tools, so that they are interchangeable. I can imagine something like that happening industry-wide with a bit more lawmaking, like happened with USB types.
Actually, it would be even better if we had a few common phone battery standards and every manufacturer had to use those (ideally with removable batteries). This might mean that phones would have to be built with the batteries in mind, not vice versa, which doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.
Then again, personally I wouldn't even mind if there were like 10-20 common phone form factors in the first place.
That's because electric power tools are sold as a platform: you choose a brand and buy in to their platform. For example I mainly use a driver + drill so bought in to Milwaukee. Ended up buying a lot of other kit from them too.
No thanks. Things like this almost always have unintended consequences.
Mostly industrial/professional tools so far but I hope it will continue to grow. Yes, I have Bosch stuff. :)
https://www.protoolreviews.com/power-tool-manufacturers-who-...
But the voltage remains the same: 3.7 discharged and 4.2 volts fully charged.
I really don't care if the outer dimensions of the battery are sloppy by 5 mm or if the capacity is smaller (or larger) by a few hundred or even a thousand mAh - so long as I can replace the _absolutely dead_ battery already in the device. I'll pad out the rest with styrofoam or even just squeeze some tacky clay in there to prevent it from rattling.
Why isn't it done? Where's the catch?
What's the minimum voltage we could get without intervention? I'm not well-versed in batteries, but I do recall that a typical Li-Ion cell has 3.7V on output, which might be tricky to fit into one AA/AAA, but isn't that far from two AA/AAAs.
While there's no standard way for devices to accept multiple AA/AAAs, to a first approximation, a Li-Ion cell reformatted into a shape of two AAs with ~1-2mm "space" between them, would fit all my remotes and a third of my children's toys - so I could see a "Li-Ion double AA" working as a product, provided it could shed that 0.7V somewhere. The biggest problem would be devices accepting odd number of batteries.
I do have devices where the 2xAAs are in a column configuration.
Edit: Replaced remote with devices (it's a keyboard not a remote)
Some manufacturers also make Li-Ion replacements for multi-AA devices, but thats then specific to manufacturer and device and the exact placement it expects.
This specific battery is unlikely to work for other devices because the controller has an extra connector, presumably to detect it and control charging (which happens over a USB cable). You'd at least need an XBox controller to charge it.
For powering iPhones, you can buy a few 18650 with a type-C/lightning case from AliExpress, but most people will prefer just buying a powerbank.
How does that compare with NiMh, or whichever is the current standard chemistry for rechargeable AA/AAAs? I may be misguided here, but I generally avoid regular single-use AA/AAAs, as it feels like a complete waste of energy - even if properly disposed of, I don't imagine they get recharged by some factory and put back on the market, so all the embodied energy that went into making them is lost.
> For powering iPhones, you can buy a few 18650 with a type-C/lightning case from AliExpress, but most people will prefer just buying a powerbank.
At least some of the power banks I've disassembled in the past were just 18650s with a case, USB port and charging circuitry, so I can't blame people for buying it already pre-assembled.
Probably not the word I’d have used. You’d need what, 6 high-capacity AAAs to get standard battery size/life? Maybe 8? Possibly 10 with recent phones?
The Energiser rechargeable AAA I happen to have here is 800mAh.
So exactly four standard rechargeable AAAs. Not bad really.
Edit: As explained below, this is incorrect, as I didn't take voltage into account.
You must compare watt-hours (or use joules, if you like) for it to be meaningful. AAA voltage is 1.5V, lithium ion voltage is 3.7V or 4.2V or something, which means that each "mAh" is worth several times as much as one from a AAA battery.
The iPhone 14 Pro battery is about 12Wh. A single AAA battery has about 1.9Wh, according to google. So, 6 AAA batteries, optimistically, excluding other factors that could raise the count. Using your number of 800mAh*1.5V=1.2Wh, which would mean 10 AAA batteries.
Though I think I’ve seen up to 1200.
There are other non-rechargeable chemistries that are far more energy dense than AAA batteries, and those might be interesting to discuss.
I guess it kinda worked when everything was 1.5V but even then it was pretty stupid, and it’s been a while.
And I feel like we’ve regressed somehow? Didn’t every smartphone use to advertise battery capacity in (m)Wh, like laptops? I feel like just a few years ago that was the prominent measure, and you’d get voltage and Ah as side-notes, e.g. the iPhone 12 wiki page states
> 3.83 V 10.78 Wh (2,815 mAh)
And yet it’s still dumb, because the actual energy density would let you make the exact same comparison anyway, and it would allow for easier comparison with other battery types or contexts.
> If I need a phone with a large battery, and all phones are 3.8 volts (yes, I do mean 3.7-4.2) then comparing mAh is useful
It’s not, there’s a >10% difference between the top and the bottom of the range.
Just give actual energy values, it’s strictly more useful.
But: Watt hours (Wh) are quite low for these NiMH rechargebles. I think what would be preferable would be a standardised size of phone-fitting Li-Ion batteries that manufacturers are required to use.
(I highly doubt that this will ever happen, though.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MicroTAC
had a battery which was the actual "back cover" (it was connected to the phone via sliding), and everyone had at least two batteries, there were all kind of slim to bulkier sizes.
Some of them (medium sized) simply contained 5 (Ni-Cd or Ni-Mh) AAA batteries.
In case of smartphones it could work if we go through a fundamental shift: switch to e-ink or similar, reduce expectations of hardware performance, be much more efficient as app developers and have reliable ways of testing that efficiency. I’d welcome this personally, but I doubt even Apple with its marketing prowess could make it desirable for mainstream audiences after years of stressing CPU, GPU, RAM numbers and gaming capabilities.
I suspect it’s probably less of a possibility with laptops. Keeping battery designs proprietary, being free from regulatory friction, being able to charge for replacement is probably part of the incentives that got them where they are in terms of capacity and size. If we mandated using standardized easily replaceable batteries a la AA/AAA, we would have bulkier laptops that can’t last a day (let alone on any demanding task), and spares would be too bulky to carry for those who want to walk light.
[0] Stressing over battery charge and battery health of our devices. A situation where battery runs out just as we vitally need the device is enough to be in once, so we charge defensively. We also know that battery health decreases over time (the device is gradually “used up”), and we try to prolong it: we experience stress every time the battery is too low since this runs it down and every time we leave it connected for too long because constantly topping up the charge to 100% also runs it down. So we subconsciously track short-term battery charge and long-term battery health, and we are painfully aware that they deteriorate with every second—and unlike external wear, this deterioration concerns not aesthetics but device’s ability to be more than a brick. (It is probably less concerning to those who drive a fossil fuel car everywhere, those who spend most of their time home or at work, or those who feel financially and ethically OK just getting a new device whenever it seems as if the battery doesn’t hold or a new model comes out.)
But we won't as manufacturers want to use batteries in shapes they want. In the case of laptops of bigger this also often ends up with there still being space despite them using a custom size.
We were pretty close to a couple of standards of Li-Ion flat battery in the mid to late 00s, at least in Europe, due to proliferation of Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Nokia especially had some batteries that they used across several models. And the voltage and current being the same, you could also use smaller batteries in some models.
The latter has been useful for the 808 PureView I have. Getting the specific battery that it used is now impossible. But it can take a very common Nokia battery with a slightly lower capacity.
4 years would be fine if you voluntarily upgrade because a newer model improves over what you have in an appreciable way. 4 years isn't fine if the device meets your needs and the only reason you have to replace it is because of the battery wearing out.
I myself have had zero stings of any bee or wasp in my life so I prefer to gently coax them away from my plate. Some people are absolutely terrified about them though so "just let them be" rarely seems to be good advice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespula_germanica
Edit: actually I don't know which one is more common, Vespula germanica or Vespula vulgaris. I wouldn't be able to differentiate between them.
I’ve found wasps extremely persistent and confident in ways most insects never are.
It’s one thing to gentle swat them but when they come back for 5-10min straight it's understandable why people don't like them.
I also got bit on the mouth as a child when I drank a can of coke that had a wasp inside so I'm not exactly unbiased.
In my experience your hand is a minor annoyance that they'll fly around and continue eating. Only way to have peace is to lay traps around your eating area.
They were also really docile and tolerated a good deal of me fumbling around with the nest. I waited until it was cold out and covered up pretty thouroghly, but they were mostly content to let me flop them around with a set of long BBQ tongs.
The wasp protection one gets broken all the time for obvious reasons.
At least that was my impression in Berlin; wasps got all the sugar, Berliners stayed pretty thin for the most part.
FWIW, this bit is true of everyone I've known who was aware of an anaphylactic allergy, independent of their likelihood of exposure to the allergen. "Carry an EpiPen, know how to use it, make sure some of the people around you are aware of your allergy and know how to handle a reaction" is a very light-weight and reliable solution to "something relatively common could easily kill me".
There once was a nest of vespula germanica above the window of my study, a rather big nest that grew to a size of about 3000 or 4000 animals. The only thing I did about it was to close a hole in the wall, because a few of them kept coming inside. I sometimes went outside to watch the traffic at the entrance of the nest.
More fun facts: wasps eat mosquitos. Lots of them! And they pollinate plants. Adult wasps are vegetarians, when they hunt or steal a piece of your steak (I have seen that happen!), then they collect food for their larvae.
If you really want to get rid of wasps, use an essential oil (peppermint, lemon grass). Wasps communicate using pheromones and do not tolerate strong odor. Do not spray the nest, spray the area around the nest. You do not have to kill them.
I can intellectually process all the facts you wrote, but in my dealing with wasps and hornets, I find it hard to see them as anything than fast-moving balls of pain, always ready to strike at you out of nowhere, when you least expect them. Also, as a relatively fresh parent, as a threat to my children. I tend to prefer dealing with them by installing mosquito nets in all windows, but if a hornet gets in and doesn't politely leave, it's makeshift flamethrower time.
Different nests can be as close as a few meters and their inhabitants will mostly ignore each other. The hornets were about 7 or 8 meters away from the yellow jackets, and I have never seen them fight. If you put some fruit or honey somewhere, they will (mostly) peacefully share it.
European hornets are not aggressive at all, they are just big and loud. When one gets into the house, I usually wait for it to settle down somewhere and then carefully catch it with a glass and a piece of cardboard. We also have mosquito nets on all windows and doors.
Another fun fact: wasps will not spend much time around their nests. They usually leave the nest at high speed (do not stand there!) and then roam an area of multiple square kilometers. When they come back they immediately go back into the nest. Sometimes a single animal may inspect the closer area, but this is rare.
Once you understand wasps, there is not much to fear. I understand your concerns regarding you child/children, and it is probably a good idea to keep wasps at a distance for some time. When children grow up, there is little danger, though. The sting of a single wasp or hornet will not harm a human being unless you are allergic. (European!) hornets use almost the same venom as yellow jackets, only more of it. (In Asia or South America, be more careful!)
Finally, wasps do not want to sting you. Most of the time they are just investigating. When a flying wasp bothers you, slowly and carefully push it away with your hand. Most of the time it will just go away. On the net there are videos of some guy who tries to get stung by various wasps. It is educating to see how much he had to bother them before they did.
Seems like you are talking about bombus, not vespa. The worst thing about hornets is that if one insect has bit you somewhere near their nest than you better run as fast as possible from that place because of pheromone mark.
Not the wasps here. There's always a few wasps flying around the nests when I find them.
It also doesn't take much to aggravate them.
But to answer your question more directly: We have happily surrendered part of our terrace to wasps. Their right to live tops our desire for convenience. A nest lives for one year. If we do not want them to use the same spot next year, there are ways to make sure they do not.
My experience of sitting outside in the summer (modulo NW England) is that their flight path covers getting close to 100% of the airspace in my garden.
Though I'm sure there are other varieties I've only ever seen one type of wasp in the UK, and that's this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowjacket, and my experience of them is that they are irritating and aggressive bastards. I don't doubt that wasps are an integral part of the ecosystem, but I'd prefer it if they integrated into a geographically distinct part of the ecosystem from me and my lunch.
Having been chased by wasps while on a riding lawnmower, I'm calling bullshit! And those suckers are fast!
We get rid of termites and insects by fumigating entire buildings. I don't see anything wrong with doing that to wasps as well. After all, in all likelihood, wasps will vastly outlive the human species...
"in the last 5 years in NordRhein-Westfalen only once was someone fined 45 euros for destroying a wasps nest" https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2018/07/24/nein-wer-eine-e...
The fines for thousands of euros are the maximum possible fines, which massively differs to how fines are handed out in practice.
That's almost worse imo.
Of course this raises questions around who is making these judgements, and there's sometimes unfairness in how they are applied (eg. police in the US, broken tail lights and the colour of skin of the person stopped), but it doesn't mean that the underlying goal isn't sound, just the implementation.
Personally I've had experience of this. My car tax (UK) lapsed and I didn't renew it. An oversight during a busy time of my life (moving house), and one that I noticed and fixed independently once I noticed, it must have been after a month or two.
However, during the period when my car wasn't taxed the police noticed and reported it (to the authorities, not to me) who issued a fine (~£90) that was sent to me by post. Unfortunately though I'd told the authorities that I'd moved house, twice, they sent the fine and all followup correspondence to my old address and I ended up with a choice, pay debt collectors (they managed to find my new house /just fine/) for the now increased fine + expenses (in the region of ~£800) or go to court. Worst case either way was I'd have to pay the increased amount.
I went to court and the three justices deliberated my case (I could hear them) and though they decided that I could afford the increased amount, it wouldn't be in anyone's interest to levy it as the circumstances in which this happened mitigated my lack of attention to the increasing fines. I wasn't a deliberate law breaker and ultimately a large fine wasn't going to change my on consideration generally good behaviour, and they made me pay the original ~£90 rather than the substantially increased amount.
As the saying goes, the law is an ass.
For example over the year 2009/2010, 59 laws, which provided for 670 implementing decrees, were promulgated.
According to a Senate report, as of September 30, 2010, only 3 laws had received all of their implementing decrees. And only 20% of these decrees had seen the light of day. However, a law without an implementing decree is useless: it is not applicable.
[0] https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/parlement/faute-de-decret-d-...
Your fact check article is also only partially relevant as it addresses the sensationalist claim that these fines apply to killing a wasp but the conversation was about a wasps nest.
The article also states that these maximum fines exist but that even the very low fines that have been handed out only happen very rarely. In other words: the laws exist but they're applied so rarely as to be effectively meaningless (which is true not just for wasps but for animal cruelty in general). That doesn't disagree with what I said though.
When we bought our last house I changed a light fitting and live wasps poured out - I was freaked out, and put the fitting straight back.
A few days later I went into the attic to put some boxes up there and found a HUGE nest near the light fitting. I put my hand on it and could feel and warmth and buzz of the wasps. It was already mid summer so I just left it (there were not loose wasps in the attic - their entrance/exit was into the eves of the house).
By autumn they were gone, and we never again had a wasp issue in our house in the 10 years we lived there. I changed the light fitting the following spring.
I had a shed (and a car) that had empty nests and then got nests nearby later.
Here's an amazon link to a variety of options:
https://www.amazon.com/CAT-S60-Cell-Phone-Replacement-Batter...
Would prefer that to a watertight phone with non replaceable batteries as aging or dying batteries are more common in my experience than my desire to go on a dive with my phone.
I wouldn't say they were common, at least not for android smartphones. The first water resistant android phone was the Motorola Defy[1] in 2010. For Samsung they had the S4 Active and then the S5 had some water resistance. But then the S6 removed support for replaceable batteries. So the only Samsung phones with easily replaceable batteries and any water resistance were the S4 Active, S5 Active and the S5.
I think you're right that IP67 (30min / 1 meter) is probably achievable but I think most people prefer the better water resistance and by the time their phone battery degrades sufficiently they usually want a new phone. Additionally it's already possible to get your battery replaced. At least Apple will replace your phone battery going back to the 5S for $49 up to $99 for current models. I prefer this model where I have a trustworthy place to get the battery serviced that will preserve the water resistance for a somewhat reasonable price. I tried to look at the battery replacement cost for Samsung phones but couldn't find it, so maybe that's not a service they offer directly or it's just difficult to find.
[1] https://www.androidauthority.com/first-water-resistant-andro...
There was a brief period where common devices had ingress resistance and easily removeable batteries. The most notable being the Samsung Galaxy S5.
I use a dedicated thermal camera with bit higher resolution but higher FPS. As others have written they are quite useful as you see thing (even not ET) you could have measured with an IR thermometer if you knew they were there.
That's silly. The real reason is that the ITAR prohibits you from being able to get a higher-resolution thermal camera, which is one of several laws implementing a complex, global ban on technologies that would let regular people spot the aliens. You can thank a secret UN subcommittee for that; they've botched negotiations with aliens so badly that our governments are now forced to do the "hiding from people" work for them.
i dont even get a blip when looking at airplanes with my thermal camera
I read the other day that compact camera sales had dropped by 98%. I guess I'm one of the 2% that actually has a need for one now.
The reason is simple: you always have your phone on you, or near you. It's the most easily accessible piece of electronics, and - if you're storage limited - the last one you're likely to leave behind. There is a generic social acceptance of everyone having a phone on them (even if stashed in a pocket).
A FLIR camera as a separate device? I'm unlikely to carry it with me unless I have a specific reason, and people will look at me weird if I walk around with one. A smartphone-attachable FLIR camera? It's still a hassle to carry, there's a good chance I'll leave one behind (comparable to a bluetooth headset). A FLIR camera built into smartphone? On me all the time, everywhere, and always ready to use in random, unpredictable situations.
And yes, it's the same reason why regular smartphone cameras all but killed the compact camera as a product. Having a tool always on you expands possible use cases so much it offsets for suboptimal performance/form factor.
Cell phone attachment cameras have compatibility problems. For example, find reviews for Flir One Pro. If the cell cannot find the camera, then it's pretty useless.
I thought the move away from easily removable cases and batteries was more for waterproofing reasons?
Plus, I'm guessing the battery can be replaced, just not by the average user. I'm sure you could get it replaced if you're willing to pay a repair fee.
I really wish phone manufacturers started making flagship-like phones with a removable battery.
I wonder what other use cases previously "serious" technology will be used for.
I remember someone had a magnet of some sort embedded in their finger and could detect current fluctuations in underground electrical systems underneath a city sidewalk.
Eventually I got a new phone from work, which I grudgingly accepted since I wanted Android 12 and a better visible-light camera, but I missed the thermal cam sufficiently that I got an Infiray P2 off Ali as a plug-in substitute. The resolution and refresh rate are a lot better than the Cat, but having to carry an extra dongle (and plugging it in, starting the app, restarting the app when it crashes...) sometimes makes me consider going back. If/when Cat makes a successor, I'd be very tempted to get it.
Edit: The usb-c cam in question for those who are interested https://www.infiray.com/p2-pro-thermal-camera-for-smartphone... (available from the usual suspects)
My phone's battery is degraded now and I'm dreading a switch to something else. I've eyed the S62 but don't think it's an upgrade.
I lucked out and grabbed a Galaxy Xcover pro when they first came out. It's not really advertised for the consumer market, but it was also way cheaper than things I liked less that had been out for a year longer. I'm not sure if they'll come out with a new model anytime soon. I will say this thing has a removable battery, solid construction, and is plenty fast for me (though I'm not picky on speed). I'm still on the original battery and it will play music for 10 hours through my Bluetooth headphones and still have 30% battery by the time I get home. I really have no complaints.
EDIT: the Xcover does not have an IR camera. I got off on a tangent because I keep getting disappointed every time I look into Cat phones.
that said, I've abused the phone enough that maybe I should find a replacement for the rubber too.
Was inspired by this old linux.conf.au talk (that I attended in person) about a microwave with a thermal camera in the top. I would love the same above my kitchen stove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3DADx5z-XY
I'm a die-hard iPhone user so sadly a built-in won't work for me. I currently have a first generation Lightning FLIR One.
It's pretty limited, only a single temperature measurement, no min/max scale you can see (it just auto calibrates), has a terrible rechargable battery and doesn't work with an iPhone case.. but I got it for the bargain basement price of $100 AUD ($67 USD) on Marketplace.
My interest is more related to home effeciency (looking at gaps in insulation etc) but has been fun in the kitchen too.
I'd love one of the newer ones but haven't wanted to justify the cost and happy with my bargain aquisiton :)
I can't wait for these to become more mainstream so recipes start listing "Set stove to 150c" rather than "to medium" which is widely different depending on what stove you use. An amusing story one youtuber shared was the followed some advice that said to set your stove to high and leave it for 10 mins first, advice meant for a gas stove. When they tried it on an electric stove, the oil ignited on contact with the pan.
Can't imagine it would be any different result. 10 minutes preheat on any range is a lot. My cast iron pan started turning silvery blue well before the 10 minute mark with my gas range on high.
I would assume those would be mostly useful for frying/searing meat, vegetables, and eggs with little oil. As soon as you have more liquid in the pot you won't be able to control the temperature by measuring the temp at the bottom.
Do they work well with different pans?
That sounds like an interesting engineering challenge! Assuming we have a stove with a fast-acting heat source (e.g. induction) and high-frequency thermometer (> 1 Hz), what can we learn about the contents of the pot/pan?
I'm thinking: dump a set amount of energy into the pan (say, 0.5 seconds at "power boost" level), then watch the thermometer. Do it several times, with varying pulse lengths (say, 0.1 to 1 second - you don't want to burn anything on the pan, nor wait too long for it to cool down). This should give you a good idea of the pan's step and impulse response, and - I think - you could guesstimate what its contents are - particularly, if there are any liquids in it, and what they are. Then, continue with normal cooking, but keep a continuous record of power output vs. temperature measurement, and possibly occasionally pause and do a round of such pulse tests again.
I see no obvious reason this wouldn't give a stove quite good control authority even in the presence of liquids, including those that are added or naturally seep out during cooking. I also don't expect any of the appliance companies to ever include this level of sophistication in their products.
I find it very convenient. It's not perfect, because of course a sensor looking at the bottom of a pan can't be, but in practice we've found it very handy for the boil function (bring water to a boil @ 100 deg, drop back to 95 and hold there; making candy/fudge that requires holding around 80 degrees, making proper custard for things like creme caramel. The higher temperatures are good for things like dealing with meats, since I can dial in a temp and not fuss over what's going on.
The thing that has surprised me is how relaxing it is to use - as I say, I feel as though I'm fussing over what I'm cooking less.
That said, they're accurate to only 5 degree increments at best, and I wouldn't try using them for something like a sous-vide replacement.
All the induction cooktops I've used (both builtin and plug-in) have been REALLY useless at temperature control. Even the heat settings leave a lot to be desired, they are very coarse.
The control freak is orders of magnitude better at temperature control. I suspect it is not only the design and quality of the sensors, but the algorithms used to maintain the temperature (probably good PID).
There are two sensors:
a small glass covered sensor built into the center of the heating element that is spring-loaded and gets the heat off the bottom of the pan.
a second plug-in sensor with a cable, that can be attached to the side of a pot using an insulator gadget and suspended in the middle of whatever you're cooking.
Another pretty critical part is the "programs" you can write.
For example, you could make a "hamburger" program to bring the pan up to temperature, then beep to add the burger, then flip it later, then remove it and do another.
I often jest that cooking is just process chemistry, but done without proper tools and without caring about quality of the outcome.
My wife has the same issue with hot coffee which drives me a little nuts. She uses a normal mug most of the time. Because she isn't certified in coffee temp detection like I am; she waits and waits, gets distracted, and eventually it becomes too cold. So she reheats it in the microwave, usually to the point where it's too hot, and that cycle continues after it gets too cold again. She's probably reheated coffee in the microwave up to 4-5 times a day at times. It's hilarious and ridiculous. As an engineer, admittedly, I enjoy the hilarity so much I'm not sure if I care about it being resolved!
The issue is two-fold:
1) She lets the coffee hit the outermost parts of her lips and subjects herself to getting destroyed by the high temp lol. I don't understand why this is so difficult for people. Your outermost lips are more sensitive. Don't do that. You don't attack hot coffee like it's a fine bourbon. Also you can feel the temp and steam to know not to even attempt based on your preference and tolerance.
2) She isn't sitting at a desk consistently like most of us. She's everywhere in the house and then leaves, and her coffee intake isn't a priority like many of us.
If I put her coffee in a stainless steel mug with a lid, then it takes too long to cool to her temp. She leaves the lid off to cool and then forgets about returning to it in time. And she doesn't end up drinking the coffee because it becomes too cool. So now she would have to transfer to a microwaveable mug to reheat and start that cycle so she doesn't even bother. If I'm prepping her a roadie coffee, I must pour it, leave the lid off for a period of time and then place it back on so she will attempt drinking it in time in the car to commit to it. If it's too hot, she will more than likely just abandon it and not check back in before we reach our destination.
I got her an Ember mug so she can read the actual temp and control it. But it's not dishwasher safe of course. So she doesn't tend to use it. And from the fresh brewed carafe to the Ember still is too hot, unless the lid is off for some time like the stainless steel mug, lol.
The ideal mug for her would thus be an Ember mug that is dishwasher safe and thus have some sort of twist mechanism to disconnect the battery and status/controls portion from the core mug function. And probably have a vent mechanism on the lid (maybe a double pop on the Ember lid to vent more?) to more quickly get the temp down from initial temp, as the heated mug portion can ensure the set temp is hit anyway.
Someone please build that and save me! Or don't, and I'll enjoy the entertainment derived from the struggle. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_mug
could be made with ink/paint changes that show (very approximately) the temperature (I think the ones around have only on/off states).
1. Buying a temperature-adjustable kettle and making coffee at 185° or so instead of boiling. Bonus: I think the coffee tastes better anyway. I recently moved and couldn't take my fancy kettle with me, so now I pour cold water into the boiling kettle until I guesstimate I'm at 185. I guess this tip doesn't work if you're using a Mr. Coffee machine or whatever.
2. Giving the mug a really good blow as soon as the coffee is poured.
3. My wife bought me a few mugs that are much wider at the top than the bottom, meaning there's more exposed surface area and the coffee cools off quicker.
4. Adding an ice cube.
Before making coffee I put a cup into the fridge so the coffee will cool faster, I have not issues with cold coffee, I just don't want to wait that long.
I also used to add ice to coffee, but that was diluting it.
Helps to have containers that have an edge that is easy to pour from. Less spilling.
You put them in a cup and it
1. Quickly cools coffee to that temperature (by increasing temperature and melting). 2. Keeps coffee at that temperature for some point (doesn't go lower until liquid inside is back solid).
I've gave it a cursory google and can't find a name.
For tea I pretty much found the right amount of cooling time once and now I just repeat it. I boil water, steep for 5 minutes (with a timer), then when that 5 minutes is up I remove the bag and start an 18 minute timer. It's still pretty hot but slowly drinkable then, and within a couple minutes can be comfortably consumed quickly as well. I don't even try to drink before my timers are done anymore as I don't want to scald myself.
I think I also did some experimentation with a laser thermometer, but I don't recall what numbers I landed at, and this way I don't need to wonder how long it will take either. The time also lines up pretty well with eating breakfast if done all together.
A Raman spectrometer is still a fairly exotic piece of hardware, requiring a laser, a notch filter for the laser's wavelength, and a very good conventional spectrophotometer to look for low-level sidebands. There have been some homebrew Raman implementations -- e.g., Ben Krasnow's at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRrOdKW06sk -- but nothing that would fit on the back of a smartphone.
Because some people definitely have [1]
[1] https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/ay/d1ay0...
Edit: already on sale at https://www.amazon.com/CloudMinds-Raman-Spectrometer/dp/B081... . $24,980.00. Maybe I'll hold back a bit on this one...
Another DIY Raman setup (on a breadboard so expect few kg): https://www.thepulsar.be/article/openraman-starter-edition/
Keep in mind airports have this technology by now
Look up cell phone raman spectroscope and there's many done over the past decade
I think people's readyness to slap "fake" on everything these days is the only travesty here
https://www.pozible.com/project/zpecsen-mobile-spectrometer-...
> AU$0 of $19,800 target
> 2yrs ago
> Closed on 9th Feb 2021 at 5:00PM.
[1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001227941445.html
I don't love it like I did the nokia n900 but it is decent. It's an android that goes underwater, can take photos there and you can drop without being worried about breaking it including the screen - all phones should be like that.
The flir camera pics look just like that, haven't really found a use for it yet but I guess I might one day. The endoscope is also a cool idea that hasn't really worked out so well when I've wanted to use it. It works it just an endoscope frequently isn't as useful as you'd hope it could be.
Like every single android phone vendor they really need to get out of the business of providing the OS and set it up as a community project so it works the way you want and has upgrades if you want. Not that Apple, controlling everything, are better at this iphone6 now junk etc.
No, let's have some choice. You pay for the ruggedness in size, weight and aesthetics. That's not a trade-off everyone wants to make.
If we want to talk about the utility of a thermal camera, I found it neat. I used a $150 Seek camera to diagnose poor insulation in my bedroom, and one contractor even offered free advice over email since the images were clear enough. I've also used it to find hot ICs on a PCB. The resolution of these lower cost modules isn't great, which you can see by all the postprocessing they advertise. But it's enough to see which wall is leaky, or which IC needs a heatsink.
also, they offered phones with flir cameras before, so nothing new on this front either.
You can see the phone at 4min in this video https://youtu.be/BDUOtlVc4UM
That was last week.
(Seasons are a lousy way of describing times for anything other than local, geographically-anchored content. They’re only meaningful in a comparatively narrow band, falling apart if you head much towards the poles or equator—the four seasons model is useless in tropical areas especially—and inverting if you head to the other side of the equator.)
Our friends in the USA often assume the people they are talking to are only in the USA!
What you should have said is that many in the USA often assume the people they are talking to experienced a life identical to theirs
Given the context, 'spring' is just another way of saying second quarter. It has nothing to do with seasons beyond incidental alignment between calendar quarters and observed seasons in certain geographic areas where the use originated. Indeed, even second quarter breaks down where the Gregorian calendar isn't used, but you have to make assumptions at some point in order to communicate. Context fills in the gaps.
And for better or worse, the Gregorian calendar is the universal civil system now, even in the countries like Saudi Arabia that notionally use other calendars. Even Korean Juche years, Japanese imperial eras etc are aligned to Gregorian years.
The only thing that is actually obnoxious is silly pedantry.
If someone on the internet says “Spring 2022”, I immediately assume it’s speaking of northern hemisphere temperate regions’ spring (because such dating is uncommon in the southern hemisphere to begin with and never used in public/worldwide internet situations because we’re more aware of these things), and after thinking carefully for a bit to straighten out in my mind when that actually is, I assume March–May 2022 or possibly a week earlier (equinoxes and such), because that’s what would be meant in Australia, if we ever expressed things like that (apart from the whole off-by-six months thing!). I would not expect June to be reckoned a part of it any more than I would expect March to be a part of Q2.
(Incidentally, a year or two back I heard suggestions that “Q2” may customarily be anchored to financial rather than calendar years in some places. Not sure if this is true.)
If by “spring” you meant to convey “the second quarter of the Gregorian calendar”, you failed to communicate accurately.
How could I be more clear?
"Given the context, 'spring' is just another way of saying second quarter. ... Indeed, even second quarter breaks down where the Gregorian calendar isn't used, but ..."
I'm really not sure what is missing. Definitely interested in your advice.
Or maybe you're referring to the person who originally used Spring 2022? If that's the case then that wasn't communicated very well. "You" referring to an unrelated third-party is a new one for me.
> Incidentally, a year or two back I heard suggestions that “Q2” may customarily be anchored to financial rather than calendar years in some places. Not sure if this is true.
Definitely true in the right context, but "spring" is used more for general audiences when trying to not sound business-y; particularly when the audience is children. I doubt you will find this usage in a financial context, but definitely with respect to product launches. Something like "Coming Spring 2022" is quite common.
As this pertains to children, it is also not uncommon to see school periods referred to by these same names. e.g. "fall semester", while "summer" is the name of the prolonged vacation period. Because of that, these words are relatable (to those in the geographic region of origin), and is likely why we started seeing them turn up in business contexts, especially in advertising.
Spring has no more meaning in Melbourne than it does in Mexico City.
https://plantmaps.com/koppen-climate-classification-map-aust...
Around 250 million people live south of the Tropic of Capricorn: https://www.quora.com/What-proportion-of-the-worlds-populati...
That would be roughly the 5th most populous country in the world.
If we are making generalisations that big we might as well say that no one lives in the United States (population 330M, but rounded to the nearest billion it is zero right?)
I'm one of today's lucky 10,000 to find out about IR cameras for smartphones.
> Announced 2020, June 28
> Status Available. Released 2020, August 17
[0]: https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/f/flir/lepton-3...
I've had to navigate that and make use of listed exemptions to that, for sending thermal cameras i bought from israel- BACK to israel for repair- because of ITAR.
Other than that, you can do what you want in-country with a high quality thermal-and the US can import others who make stuff that high quality, without issues
Tends not to work because most people quite rightly realise there's a near zero chance of getting caught. More effective approaches reinforce that you will often get caught by being more proactive and the punishment can then be more proportionate.
Hey, wait... are you the person on the EEV Blog Forum who wrote about your saga of trying to figure out how to legally ship your camera to Israel for repair? That was also a ThermApp, no?
Didn't think that was too notable, but i guess i'm the only person ever who did the process so it stands out when someone talks about it, huh? lol
Related, do you know of a source for other lenses? I have the standard (19mm?) and 35mm lenses, but I’d love to have some larger lenses that are compatible with the imager.
Although I see I can save quite a bit of effort by buying a 25Hz HIKMICRO thermal camera on US Amazon.
You can get FLIR modules for most smartphones (Android and iOS). Not sure I'd buy a phone, just for the camera.
Or, you could make a camera array, with multiple lenses, like: https://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/array
If all the niche phones don't have updates, that's probably a failing of the OS rather than the niche phones.
Somehow, Microsoft manages to get Windows updates out to everywhere and computers in stores end up having the latest OS on there. Google makes Chrome OS devices update. I think there's two or three projects that were supposed to make Android updates actually happen, but where's the pudding?
For starters it had a mediocre Snapdragon SoC - better than the average cheapophone, but lacking in a product that was in the premium tier regarding price. The FLIR camera was neat, but inferior to the add-on camera I was using at the time, yet still decent. The cherry on top came when the "ruggedised" phone couldn't cope with normal wear and tear and the plastic started to separate from the case, in a manner similar to the grips in an Xbox Controller Elite game pad that I also owned during that time.
At that point I just desisted from having the CAT phone as my mainly driver and mostly relegated it to the role of auxiliary tool just to have it die suddenly on me. I tried to follow CAT's convoluted RMA process (or perhaps their Bullitt licensee who actually make their phones, I can't remember), chock-full of awful chats and sending non-stop repeated information prompts in order to process a return until I realised I bought it from Amazon and just obtained a refund.
As I said, I really tried to like the product but my experience was so horrible that I gave up on "working phones" altogether.
why bother when Chinese are manufacturing ~$200 _25hz_ 256×192 standard USB3 microbolometers? Look up INFIRAY P2 Pro/T2S+, SNDWAY SW-8256 etc
mikeselectricstuff: Infiray P2 Pro smartphone thermal camera review & teardown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMQeXq1ujn0
STS Telecom: Infiray T2S+ Thermal Camera Review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt1JBA4W6n8
The 25hz part is important because microbolometers are under ITAR restrictions meaning no US/allied manufacturer offers anything over 9Hz to ordinary consumers.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004950256049.html
So which effing company makes this, and why are we allowing this stupid white labeling to occur.
Funny aside. Maybe Elon should buy Amazon and kick off all drop shippers, white label resellers, chinese sellers and all duplicate items by enforcing unique codes for every unique product. Make Amazon Great Again.
I want to see 320X240(or the european equiv, 384X288), 640X480, and higher resolution thermals in them! Otherwise we're still hanging out around FLIR One Territory, and the years are going by fast and they aren't pushing the boundary really! Those Leptons are cheap, but haven't changed much! (And yes, FLIR MSX is a thing- but , owning thermal cameras with multiples the resolution- i'd take that over MSX if i had to choose, every time)
I see one competitor, the AGM ones like the AGM Glory Ones, (hard to see differences with their top models) , and a few other companies- have Night vision cameras with near-infrared illumination lights, for the user, as well- not just the thermal imaging- It's the dream to see as many different sensors and options in a phone as one can fit.
Trust me, they come into use- I've saved multiple pets in the dark in my neighborhood, spotted equipment that was about to ignite, and done so much more with my own thermal cameras- having MORE capabilities- actually goes farther than you can imagine, when you have them...
https://hackaday.com/2013/11/04/manufacturer-crippled-flir-e...
You can find hacked ones on ebay too.
This time I actually kept the plastic cover on my phone - at least the back and sides are covered, and it sticks out about 1mm above the screen, so it has some protection from cracking the screen; but I still managed to crack it on my first attempt...
The nice thing is that you can run them from desktop with tool https://source.dpin.de/nica/flir-gtk
You're getting a crummy phone nowhere near as good as flagships from Apple, Google, and Samsung, just because you can get a FLIR camera integrated.
Why not just buy one of these? https://industrial-reviews.com/smartphone-thermal-camera/
They are cheapo Chinese Android phones, with a gimmick. The gimmick can work for some people, sure. Didn’t work for me.
I will drop my phone. It'll fall out of my pocket. I will sit on it. Sometimes it will land on a hard surface. It'll get wet. It'll get muddy. It'll get unceremoniously tossed in my gym bag. All these things happen. With most phones, this means I have to replace the screen if not the phone. With a CAT, there's no noticeable effect at all.
I also really like how heavy and sturdy they are. Makes them easier to find. Battery life is also amazing. Mine is down to needing charging every two days now after a couple of years. My girlfriend's similar-aged flagship Samsung needs a filler-upper in the afternoon to make a full day.
Anyway CAT matches what I want in a phone. This isn't for everyone, but let's not pretend nobody wants a phone that is sturdy and basic. Because I really do.
In my efforts to find the perfect rugged phone, I honestly feeling like I am chasing butterflies.
It is certainly on my radar wherever my current phone finally kicks the bucket so to speak
> Drop tested multiple times onto concrete & solid steel from up to 1.8m (6ft) to prove their rugged credentials.
> Designed to exceed MIL-SPEC 810H protection against dust, as well as shock, water, vibration and extreme temperatures.
> IP68 & IP69 rating system proves your phone can handle not just a brief dunk in water but also complete submersion.
> Wash and sanitise with soaps, hand sanitisers, anti-bacterial sprays, alcohol wipes and even bleach.
are features attractive to many who work outdoors in construction, engineering, surveying, hands on dirty roles.
Probably the reason for the subpar FLIR resolution on this phone as well.
Nope. You are confusing proper Far-Infrared thermal cameras (which can "see" radiated heat in the e.g. -10..60c range, and tell you that the top left corner of that window is poorly insulated), and regular CMOS cameras lacking an IR filter, which just see up to a few hundred nanometers beyond far-red (up to 1000 I'd guess?), and some clothes would be transparent at those wavelengths if illuminated by the right source (the Sun being one). You can easily buy filter-less IR cameras for scientific or astronomical purposes, or if you want to perv I guess, they're readily available. Plop ~20 bucks on a Pi NOIR camera for example, for the Raspberry Pi.
(Actually every CMOS sensor sees in that band - it's reasonably easy to modify many cameras and remove the IR filter if that's what you want)
An actual thermal camera is way more expensive and has a far lower resolution unless you want to spend more than on a Tesla. Not to mention, it's subject to ITAR export controls if you're in the US.
But large apertures? Are you thinking of the longer wavelength? For near infrared, this is a thing- and other night optics....and things like NVGs which use Near infrared
But, this isn't ...a thing for MWIR/LWIR, and not necessarily for SWIR either
The reason not ALL thermals have to be cryogenically cooled- is microbolometers - that's the key.
- I own a bunch of uncooled LWIR cameras, that i use- and NVGs as well
The Cat42 is based on a mediatek chipset and gave us "meh" performance. BT/BLE was underwhelming compared to other phones. I'd recommend something like an Cat53 or 62 with Qualcomm guts instead.
https://fossbytes.com/sony-accidentally-launched-camcorders-...
https://www.flir.com/news-center/camera-cores--components/fl...
Thermal sensors of this type are huge and expensive. At work I also have a Flir with 1024x768 sensor, super expensive with a massive germanium (or something) lens. One of the problems for handheld applications is that you always need two separate optical paths since the lensing is totally incompatible. So you end up having to register the two images to each other, which can fail when it's darkish or the image doesn't have a lot of edges.
Lepton 3.5 professional grade camera 1440 x 1080 HD output with VividIR MSX linear overlay from visual cam Measurable range: -20°C to 400°C
https://www.flir.com/products/lepton/
Scroll down for full specifications.
Key property is also thermal sensitivity, which for Lepton 3.5 is <50mK. Better sensitivity and you will be able to see finer gradients or need less temperature gradient to observe.
Where did you score it for that price, marketplace, eBay?
Though even the $500 AUD odd going rate on eBay is pretty good given the cost of any of the devices with a screen built-in.
It isn't as good as the FLIR on the Cat phone, but if you're one of those people going "Man, having a FLIR around the house would be cool" - this is the solution for you. And it will outlive your phone...so long as you don't change "sides" in the OS Wars.
Does anyone expect the IR to look any other direction than forward on a phone?
Seriously though, does ROM no longer stand for read-only memory?
More seriously, the use of "ROM" to mean "nonvolatile storage in general" probably took off when the Android community began calling their firmware "ROMs".