Anyone have the FLIR TCX thermal cameras?

[gregom]

I'm thinking of buying four of the FLIR TCX thermal cameras. They are about $450 each with either 25 or 50 degree FOV. Resolution is really low... but i'm covering a small area so that shouldn't be much of an issue. Thermal is for detection and not identification anyhow.

Thanks.

[PacoLM]

This is overkill! Use a thermal camera to perform detection...I do not know the reason behind this, but you are trully throwing your money. ZM has an embedded algorythm to perform detection of motion (it works fine, just requires some fine tuning depending on the area/light etc).

The detection works even with $50 cameras, so I really recommend you to try first with a regular camera, and, if you are not satisfied with the results, then go and buy a more expensive thermal camera.

Hope it helps!

PacoLM

[gregom]

Hey I was just asking if anyone is using these, that's all... I don't question if they will work with ZM much, I just want to hear opinions and facts on how well they work as an outdoor thermal camera. I've done tons of searching on the net and haven't found any discussions about them so I may just have to try one for myself.

I appreciate your opinion and suggestions on the subject, however at this point I'm not looking for motion detection anymore, I'm looking for human detection. I have a lot of vegetation on my property so relying on motion detection simply isn't reliable (I've been trying for over a year frequently tweaking with motion settings in ZM) and I get too many false alarms. In addition, at night I would have to spend a ton of money on lighting to get sufficient light around trees and shrubbery to ensure no heavily shaded areas. So thermal imaging is probably a cheaper solution now considering the prices have come down so much.

[river100]

I like that idea, you could link it to an HD cam. Any more info on it ??

450 sounds cheap for a thermo cam, last time I looked they were many times more.
I have other uses for them so I'm going to check out that model.

[KeviNH]

I recently found the "FLIR TCX Mini-Bullet" at a good price (cheaper than the bare-board dev kit from Sparkfun!), so I picked one up to experiment with. One of my goals is to use it as suggested up-thread, to trigger recording on a HD camera. I posted my zoneminder settings.

The "mini-bullet" models are missing some of the best features of the regular "TCX", but they're also (relatively) cheap.