A genuine THERMAL IMAGING camera FOR $300

If you want to inspect your home for hot air leaks, take photos of the warm coming off a rack of equipment, or just chase the most dangerous animal, [Arnie], with the jungles of central america, a thermal imaging camera is your friend. These gadgets normally expense a few thousand dollars, however the team behind the Mu Thermal Camera managed to get the cost down to about $300.

The fundamental concept behind the Mu Thermal camera is overlaying the output of an infrared thermopile – basically, an infrared camera – on top of the video feed of a wise phone’s camera. This is an approach we’ve seen before and something that has even been turned into a successful Kickstarter. These previous incarnations experienced from terrible resolution, though; just 16×4 pixels for the infrared camera. The Mu thermal camera, on the other hand, has 160×120 pixels of resolution. That’s the exact same resolution as this $2500 Fluke IR camera. After the indiegogo campaign is over, the Mu camera will ultimately offer for $325.

We have no concept exactly how the people behind the Mu camera were able to produce a thermal imaging with such outstanding resolution at this cost point. The great news is the team will be open sourcing the Mu camera after their indiegogo run is over. W’e’d like to see those docs now, if only to figure out exactly how a thousand dollars of infrared sensor is crammed into a $300 device.