(on sale for $234) FLIR TCX T4325BN Thermal IP camera

[bp2008]

The cameras listed here have been discontinued and are no longer available from lorextechnology.com.

These thermal cameras are currently on sale (as of March 29, 2017) at much lower prices than usual, in case anyone has been considering one. Note the coupon code SAVE10 as advertised on the product page.

25 degree FOV for $234 (USD) with 10% off coupon
FLIR TCX Mini Bullet Thermal Security Camera (25° Field of View)

50 degree FOV for $261 (USD) with 10% off coupon
FLIR TCX Mini Bullet Thermal Security Camera (50° Field of View)

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FLIR TCX Mini Bullet Thermal Security Camera (25° Field of View)

Model T4325BN

These were being sold at 25% off with a coupon code for Black Friday, making the total price $277.49 USD for the model with a 25 degree field of view, or $307.49 for the 50 degree field of view. Both have the same staggeringly low resolution of 80x45 pixels, so I opted to order the cheaper camera with the narrower field of view.

I've been itching to try a thermal imaging security camera for ages, and I figure I won't find a better opportunity for at least a year or two. Lorex's store offers a 60 day return policy with full refunds so if it turns out to be completely worthless I can return it in January.

I will post images and video when it arrives, but for now, this is my rough estimation of the field of view and image quality I can expect from it.



I constructed the above image from a snapshot with a normal camera. I expect the thermal image to have much less contrast ... until a human or animal walks into the frame.

Thermal security cameras are glorified motion detectors; and this is especially true for the FLIR TCX series.

Update: Pictures and video from the camera are below.

 

[fenderman]

cool...btw, Dahua just released a bunch of hybrid cams....they are likely much more expensive though..

 

[bp2008]

Which are those? I think hybrid thermal/optical cameras are going to be a big deal in the future, once they can get the cost of the thermal imaging components down far enough. Might be a decade or two

I asked Andy who has been selling those starlight cams if he could get any of the Dahua thermal cameras but he told me he couldn't. I think this is the result of their very specialized nature and high price, not to mention certain export regulations regarding thermal imaging devices.

 

[fenderman]

Which are those? I think hybrid thermal/optical cameras are going to be a big deal in the future, once they can get the cost of the thermal imaging components down far enough. Might be a decade or two

I asked Andy who has been selling those starlight cams if he could get any of the Dahua thermal cameras but he told me he couldn't. I think this is the result of their very specialized nature and high price, not to mention certain export regulations regarding thermal imaging devices.

hybrids
Ultra Series
thermal only
Pro Series

 

[bp2008]

I am 99% certain this Lorex/FLIR I ordered is a rebranded Dahua, given the physical similarity to the Dahua "Pro Series" thermals, and I think it had a Dahua web interface in a promotional video I looked at on youtube a while back.

I found some prices for the Dahua Pro Thermal Series here: Vaizdo stebėjimo sistemos DAHUA - ExtraDigital.lt As expected, they are an order of magnitude more expensive.

 

[bp2008]

This camera arrived today. I'll mount it outside tomorrow.

The sensor is 80x60 pixels, but the camera upscales this before encoding to H.264. The main stream does 1280x960 and 1280x720, while the sub stream does 640x480 and 640x360. The 16:9 resolutions have the same horizontal field of view but a shorter vertical, only utilizing 80x45 pixels in the center of the sensor, so there is little reason to choose 16:9 over 4:3.



Also, the sensor frame rate is apparently 8.6 according to a FLIR Lepton spec sheet (I guess some export regulations say it has to be < 9 FPS). Here is a clip that Blue Iris recorded of me while I was walking in front of the camera to test it.

 

[nayr]

I'd like to see how far away it can pickup thermal targets and identify if its human, animal or vehicle

 

[bp2008]

The specs have: "Human Detection Range: 20m for 50°, 40m for 25° (typical)"

Tomorrow morning I will mount it next to this cam and point it so it sees roughly the area outlined in the red box. Pointed this way, it should be able to capture lots of cars, people (some walking their dogs), and maybe some of the 6 deer that have been in the area lately.



After a few days though I'm probably going to point it toward the porch and leave it that way.

 

[bp2008]

I mounted it outside. This is the view I will give it eventually, watching the driveway and front of house.



But for now, I pointed it at the road to see how things look at longer distances. At the right edge, the road is about 20m away (66 feet) and toward the left edge it is more like 40m which is the maximum "human detection range" according to the specs for this model.



This is a clip recorded of me carrying my ladder in front of it. We'll just have to wait for more. Slow day. No cars have gone past yet.

 

[bp2008]

The image/video settings are extremely minimal on this camera. In the product manual, they advertised things like variable color palettes (instead of just the simple grayscale dark=cold, light=warm scheme), but I think that was a carryover from higher priced models because none of that is here where the manual says it should be:



It has the full complement of video encoding options found on any other Dahua camera though.



By the way the sub stream is averaging about 200 Kbps even though I chose highest quality VBR. So recording thermal cameras 24/7 should be no problem.

 

[bp2008]

I've built a mosaic from 9 clips recorded by this camera. The closest visible part of the road is about 20 meters (66 feet) away. The farthest part, 40 meters or so.

Spoiler: click here to see some of the source videos separately

Here are some clips of vehicles going by, and a guy with his snow blower.

And finally, a few clips that Blue Iris recorded because the sensor auto-calibration is a bit glitchy. If I tweak BI's motion detection to eliminate these alerts, then I'm fairly sure it will miss real events that happen during or shortly after a sensor calibration change. One of the main reasons for having a thermal camera is to have far fewer false alarms than with traditional motion detection, so this is rather disappointing.

 

[bp2008]

I merged 24 hours of motion clips into one video. There may be 10-20 seconds of nothing between moments of activity, due to pre and post-trigger recording - sorry about that.


The clips consist of:
* vehicles
* people
* people walking dogs
* deer

Most of the deer traffic is between 40m54s and 44m00s in the video.

 

[bp2008]

This is my new/permanent mounting position. Quite nice contrast with all the snow on the ground and the sun heating up the dumpster.



Of course I immediately lost one of the two tiny screws that locks the ball joint in the camera's mount; the little things are about 2 square millimeters and one must have come out of my pocket with the screwdriver. Fortunately only one is necessary to keep the camera tightly fixed in position.

 

[bp2008]

One interesting thing about this camera is how it dynamically adjusts contrast. This being effectively winter, everything is cold. If a person walks into the scene, all that cold stuff fades away as the contrast range is forced to expand.

Here are a few frames from a clip this afternoon, see how much the contrast changes with me in and out of the picture.



Better yet, here is a video which demonstrates a few things about this camera.

1) It flickers fairly strongly light/dark.
2) Contrast changes to suit the current range of temperatures in the picture.
3) It can see footprints in the snow after you've already left the frame


Here is how I have the motion detection configured in Blue Iris. I haven't noticed any false alarms since I set it up this way, even with all the light/dark flickering.

Remember, though the native resolution is only 80 x 60, the camera upscales to a main stream resolution of 1280x960 and sub stream resolution of 640x480. This is why you set the Object travels (pixels) value to something like 200 instead of like ... 12.

 

[nbstl68]

So Hypothetically....
If I were able to somehow dash or grill mount this camera, protect it from weather and power it from my car's battery then somehow connect it to the vehicle's nav screen or aux 7" monitor or something, do you think it could be used to spot deer or other suicidal rodents in or on the side of the road at night while driving?

My initial thoughts would be that the engine heat would overload the sensor so it could not see ahead or maybe you would not be able to get a real time image due to the speed of the vehicle vs. the very low frame rate.

Just imagining possibilities.

 

[bp2008]

Hypothetically, yes, you could do that. I don't think engine heat would be a problem as you wouldn't be pointing it at any part of the car. It will run on 12v power, and it is IP66 rated. Plus it has an analog video output which is probably more reliable and lower latency than pulling a stream over IP. But due to the low frame rate and low resolution, it probably isn't worth the trouble of the custom mounting that would be required.

A much better solution would be a kit designed specifically for vehicles such as PathfindIR II: PathFindIR II LWIR Camera Cores | FLIR Systems Of course that starts at around $2500 but it is much more suitable.

 

[cam235]

The demo video for that PathFindIR II camera is pretty impressive. A bit pricey for the typical consumer but I assume prices will come down further with time.

 

[nbstl68]

That's pretty cool but cha-ching.
I don't think resolution is much of a concern...would just need to see any sort of heat signature at all to know something was coming into the road.

 

[bp2008]

The advertised "human detection range" on this camera is only 130 or something feet. The camera designed for vehicle mounting is much, much higher resolution.

Also, lots of stuff lets off heat. Cars and buildings particularly. I think a vehicle thermal camera is most useful if it can identify and notify you somehow of humans and animals while ignoring other sources of heat.

 

[nbstl68]

That would be more useful...probably does that in the $5k version...