Why you want an Android smartphone with a thermal and IR digicam

Whereas there is no doubt that the iPhone is seen by many as the final word smartphone, there are many smartphones on the market which have options Apple customers can solely dream of getting. Suppose thermal cameras and IR night time imaginative and prescient, and even laser pointers.

Want a smartphone that has all this and extra, all constructed right into a ruggedized shell able to dealing with powerful conditions with ease?

The AGM Glory G1S is likely to be the smartphone you’ve got been ready for.

AGM Glory G1S

From the entrance, the AGM Glory G1S appears like a normal ruggedized handset.

Design

Externally, the Glory G1S is like numerous different ruggedized smartphones. An enormous slab of a smartphone wrapped in protecting rubber armor, with little flaps overlaying all of the ports to stop water ingress.

The smartphone claims it is rated waterproof and dustproof to IP68/IP69K and drop examined from 1.5m to adapt to MIL-STD-810H.

This can be a powerful handset.

Extra: Greatest rugged telephones for outside adventures

The show is a big 6.53-inch show, and it comes straight out of the manufacturing unit with a display screen protector utilized.   

On the within, it options an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G CPU with Qualcomm’s Adreno 619 GPU. That is backed up by 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB of storage, expandable by including a 512GB microSD card.

That is fairly a considerable smartphone.

It has all of the stuff you’d anticipate an Android smartphone to have, like Bluetooth and NFC, and a fingerprint sensor.

It is also loaded with cameras, a front-facing 48-megapixel digicam, a 2-megapixel macro digicam, and a 16-megapixel front-facing digicam.

It is even obtained a 3.5mm headphone jack — bear in mind these? — and the earbuds additionally act as an antenna for the FM radio.

However there’s extra.

AGM Glory G1S rear camera array

AGM Glory G1S’s rear digicam array is uniquely polarizing.

Cameras

Packed into the rear digicam array is a 256×192 thermal imaging digicam with a temperature vary of -20°C to 550°C, and a 20-megapixel night time imaginative and prescient IR digicam with IR LED illumination.

Sure, this has each a thermal digicam and an IR night time imaginative and prescient digicam.

Oh, there’s additionally a laser pointer.

So why may you need a smartphone that has a built-in thermal digicam or an IR digicam?

As a result of they’re tremendous helpful, not simply as a fun-to-play-with gizmo, but additionally as a result of they’re actually helpful instruments within the arms of a technician or engineer.

Extra: ZDNet’s full overview of the AGM Glory G1S

Thermal digicam

I obtained my first thermal digicam — a standalone FLIR unit — a couple of years in the past and I’ve discovered it to be tremendous helpful. You are able to do a lot with it.

This is just some issues you are able to do with a thermal digicam:

  • Discover overheating electrical parts (defective parts often run hotter)
  • Diagnose all kinds of HVAC issues, from home windows that leak warmth to radiators that are not warming up correctly to AC models that are not cooling
  • Discovering dangerously overheating rechargeable batteries
  • Discovering radiator pipes beneath floorboards
  • Discover overheating energy cables
  • Discover issues with cooling methods on desktop and laptop computer methods
  • Spot binding brakes on automobiles

My tip for studying to make use of a thermal digicam is to make use of it to have a look at issues once they aren’t defective — your radiators, automobile brakes, electrical stuff, something — and that method you get to know the way issues ought to look so you possibly can inform when issues aren’t working proper.

It is obtained to the purpose the place I discover the thermal digicam so helpful that I flip to it with out fascinated with it. Simply now I wished to know if {an electrical} equipment was getting energy, and as an alternative of reaching for a multimeter, I used my thermal digicam to see if something was warming up on the within. As soon as I noticed parts heating up, that eradicated a load of potential issues.

Thermal camera examining a car engine

Thermal digicam inspecting a automobile engine

The thermal app is particularly useful and easy to use

The thermal app is especially helpful and simple to make use of

Night time imaginative and prescient

Night vision

However what about night time imaginative and prescient? Absolutely that is a type of area of interest issues? 

You would be flawed.

The variety of instances I’ve discovered myself in some room that does not have any gentle (often an attic or a basement). Or perhaps it is nighttime and I do not need to blast gentle across the place to search for one thing (as a photographer that does a little bit of night time pictures, I discover that is one thing I do typically).

One other cool trick that you should utilize the night time imaginative and prescient digicam for is to test if infrared LEDs are working. You discover these on all kinds of units, from TV distant controls to the IR floodlights constructed into safety cameras. 

And, it is also a enjoyable software for seeing what goes on after the solar units. It is fairly superb the animals that come out once they assume they can not be seen!

This can be a really useful characteristic to have packed right into a smartphone.

I believed that the laser pointer could be one thing I would by no means use, however I do. 

For pointing!

I do know, apparent proper? However if you happen to’re attempting to level at one thing out of attain, one thing sizzling, or one thing buried in a stay electrical equipment, then utilizing the laser pointer is a heck of so much higher than utilizing a finger!

Backside line

The AGM Glory G1S isn’t low-cost — coming in at $699 — however for many who could make use of thermal and night time imaginative and prescient cameras, this can be a stable handset that is value having a look at. For extra basic protection (and thermal photographs) of the AGM Glory G1S, take a look at my colleague Jack Wallen’s full overview right here.