REVIEW – One of the gadgets that has been on my bucket list to check out for a while now has been a thermal camera. While it’s not an every-day use item that I’m going to carry around with me, it’s definitely a tool that can be incredibly useful at the right place and time. Today’s review, the Thermal Master Thor002, touts a very full feature set and says that it was designed for professional use. Read on to see how it has held up to testing over the past weeks!
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $ $399.00
Where to buy: Thermal Master | Amazon On sale $359
What is it?
The Thermal Master Thor002 is a handheld thermal camera with a large viewing screen, the ability to record both pictures and video, and a rechargeable battery.
What’s included?
- Thermal Camera
- USB A to USB C cable
- User Guide
- Calibration Certificate
- Storage Case
Tech specs
- 512×384 X³IR™ Resolution
- Thermal Imaging Camera with IR Fuse™
- 640×480 3.5″ IPS Hard Screen
- ±1.5℃ accuracy
- -4℉~ 1022℉ Temperature Range
- Image Frequency: 25Hz
- Thermal Sensitivity: < 40mK
Design and features
This thermal camera fits nicely in your hand and is lighter than it looks at first. It has a large view screen that makes using the camera very easy. The screen displays battery life, temperature, date and time, and a number of other information points depending on your setting selections. You can see the temperature gradient and also zoom in for more detail.
All of the features are laid out in the short manual as you can see below. Picture is a bit blurry for some reason, so apologies.
Saying that the settings menu on this device is thorough would be putting it mildly. The level of customization and details you can set on this is truly impressive. I am not a professional inspector or someone who would even begin to understand all of the options available on this device, so I just have to say that this is definitely feature rich. Here are all of the setting options and some of these options have their own sub-menus.
The top of the unit has a nice rubber cover for the USB C port and the micro-SD card port. It comes out of the box with a micro-SD card with it, so you don’t have to worry about finding one separately.
The actual sensor of the camera has a cover that you can easily cover/uncover with the red mechanical switch shown in the picture below.
The camera has a pistol grip and trigger for taking pictures and video. To take a picture just pull the trigger and to take video just hold the trigger down. Very easy capture.
Setup
Charge the device with a USB-C cable. The thermal camera comes with a charge out of the box, but topping off the battery is always a good idea.
Performance
One of the first tests outside of course had to be the dog. It’s pretty fascinating to see things literally in a different light.
While I’m writing about the dog, you can also see that this camera also is good to catch evidence of the dog laying on the couch where she’s not supposed to be.
The cold and hot water running in a bathroom sink is also a very interesting test and visual.
For more useful testing, we used the camera to check some rooms that had a bit of a draft and that we suspected had some inadequate insulation. It showed pretty quickly that it appears that the insulation around one of the windows is pretty lacking, so definitely useful.
On to another room, it’s really useful to be able to see where the insulation is having issues or perhaps something else is going on.
Final thoughts
Again, while I’m not a home inspector or professional that would use a thermal camera on a daily basis, this is an incredibly useful tool to have to identify issues in your home. It can also be very useful in taking the temperature of a number of different things whether it’s the internal temp of a grill or how hot the asphalt outside in the summer is. I’ve already been used this several times to check things out in my home and in my brother’s home, so I’m really enjoying having this around. I would definitely recommend having a thermal camera handy and if you’re a professional I think this would be incredibly useful. I definitely recommend.
What I like about the Thermal Master Thor002 Thermal Camera
- Fantastic large screen
- An incredible number of settings and options to choose from
- Tough storage case
- Sensitivity and accuracy is incredible
- Easy to use
What needs to be improved?
- The full user manual included in the box would be really nice. It’s available on the manufacturer’s website, but would be nice to include with the product.
Price: $ $399.00
Where to buy: Thermal Master | Amazon On sale $359
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Thermal Master. Thermal Master did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
Check out these other reviews!
- Thermal Master P3 USB-C thermal imaging camera review
- TOPDON TC004 Mini Handheld Thermal Imaging Camera Review
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I received my Thor 002 last night and have begun a comprehensive test of it (in other words, I’m playing with it)!
It has a fairly narrow field of view, so it’s difficult to get a whole wall of a room.
I have used an IR camera before and the Thor gives results that are very similar (and satisfactory).
I discovered that the contractor who built our house (36 years ago) decided to save some money by leaving insulation out of a couple of exterior wall cavities.
In the default mode, it always takes two pictures at a time, one in IR and the other in visible light. I think there are modes where it will “blend” them, but I’ve only had it less than a day and have not tested that yet.
It doesn’t include any detailed information in the EXIF data (that I can tell). However, there is a .db file that may contain that info.
If I learn more, I may post it.
BTW, it’s much larger than I expected. The head is about the size of a softball. The handle does have a 1/4-20 hole for mounting on a tripod. The base of the handle also has way to put a tether on the camera (to help prevent you from dropping it), but no tether is included.
Thanks for chiming in! I was a little nervous to see if there was anything sketchy in my wall construction but I was pleasantly surprised. My brother was able to confirm that his house needed a little work in some suspect areas and now knows exactly where.