THE NEW AFFORDABLE POCKET-SIZED FLIR THERMAL CAMERA- TEST

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It’s called Ocean Scout TK and it’s the new pocket-sized cheap thermal camera by Flir.

Over the last few years, these products, once reserved to few people because of their high price, have become increasingly cheaper but no one, until today, hadn’t ever managed to propose such a cheap device, sold in America at just 599 dollars.

Skeptical by nature, we’ve decided to verify whether this cheap tool, potentially very useful and safe, really works at night.

So, we asked Raymarine Italia for a camera and we verified its performances.

Here you are our complete test.

From the package to our neck, first impressions

Once we opened the package, which contains the thermal camera, a neck lanyard and a USB cable, we soon realised that the item is really small, just 10 cm long and 4 cm wide.

Even weight is low, just 170 gr and it is very handy: provided with four bottons, it can be used with only one hand.

The internal Li-Ion-cell battery has an autonomy of 5 hours. The display is a LCD 640 x 480 one but size is not essential since the monocular view is very similar to the human one.

For all those who, like me, wear glasses, Raymarine has designed a special wheel which allows to use the camera even with no glasses.

You can choose from seven different colour palettes. This pocket-sized camera is also provided with a two-Gygabyte internal memory card for high-quality photos and videos.

Test

Ocean Scout is very simple to use. Once switched on, it immediately works and night becomes day. The image we can see is surprisingly detailed. Our favourite colour palette is the white-hot one, which offers a very “soft” view our eye accepts and interprets very well. We used Ocean Scout even with no moon and the performance was always excellent. Thanks to it, our night landings became safer and, while sailing, our view was wonderful.

On July 23th, we sailed off from Marina di Varazze to reach Cala de Medici, a crossing of less than 100 miles characterised by the presence of some storms. We used our camera during the whole crossing and we discovered that it “sees” clouds very well, a very useful thing which allowed us to avoid any danger, as you can see in the video below.

Conclusions

We liked this thermal camera very much and it convinced us at 100%. Only one who tests it can understand the advantages it offers in terms of safety.

Battery is excellent, it really lasts what Raymarine promises. The tool is very simple to use ( we didn’t ever used instructions) and available at an affordable price.

The only blemish is the image resolution, not very good, but at this price, it’s enough.