Testing a FLIR Fever Screening Camera For Adafruit NYC

Hey everyone! Today I’m going to take a look at a FLIR- or thermal camera. This is a camera that shows the heat signature of everything it sees. I already have a small one I use for checking 3D printer heated beds, and even the Open Thermal Camera- a small open source one that attaches to my phone. But neither of those are accurate enough for what we want to do today- fever screening. Ever since the SARS outbreak in Asia years ago, most airports and border crossings have thermal cameras.

00:48 - If there’s an outbreak of something, and you try to cross over the border with a fever they’ll see you and customs officials will take you for additional screening. Nothing sinister- just take your temperature with something more accurate, run additional tests and take you to the hospital if that’s necessary. Now of course you’re never going to get a perfectly accurate reading from a distance, and there are always asymptomatic carriers, but the idea is that by reducing the number of people actively shedding viruses in any environment, you reduce the number of people they can infect. If you take a bus with fifty people on it, and five are carriers, many more people will be infected than if you only have one carrier on the bus. Everywhere you go right now in Shenzhen, shopping malls, subways, offices, factories, there are thermal cameras and IR thermometers taking your temperature a dozen times a day.

01:54 - Not because we’ll be able to spot every single carrier, but because it will spot many of them and the more you can isolate, the slower the virus can spread. While some of you might be uncomfortable looking to China, fever screening has been a key part of bringing COVID-19 under control in South Korea, Japan and Singapore. It’s just one, really good tool, in a larger toolbox we use to fight this virus. But you need the right tool- and my little thermal cameras aren’t accurate enough to do it. So today I’m going to review the UNI-T 165K.

02:35 - It’s a thermal camera that is designed and optimized specifically for fever screening. My friends Limor and Phil at Adafruit asked me to buy a few different models and send it to them express. Adafruit has been asked by New York to open up and fill orders for some special electronics that are needed in the fight against COVID-19. For the Adafruit workforce good protections include: gloves, masks, and protocols. They also are using FLIR cameras as an evidence-based way to do fever and temperature screening.

03:12 - Once Adafuit fully tests and evaluates different models, they’re going to be offering them for sale to schools and businesses, so things can slowly get back to normal. Adafruit is also making DIY guides for how to make your own thermal screening tools. Most importantly is documentation Adafruit does that better than anyone and using these in a scientific way is the only way to really benefit you can’t just go waving these around at random. There are protocols you need to follow, if you want to be effective. I’m going to unbox this, and take a look. Unfortunately I’m still under home quarantine so I won’t be able to walk a crowd of people past it, but I’ll see what I can come up with to demonstrate it properly.

04:25 - Well, I have a surprise for Limor and Phil because it seems like the instruction are all in Chinese. I better figure out all this before I send it out to them. But I am sure they have some Chiense speaking employees too. Okay, I am going to use this thermometer to test my temperature so that I can see how accurate it is when I use the other FLIR camera. And on the FLIR camera I am going to set the language to English because now it is in Chinese. If you decide to buy one and don’t know how, this is the setting icon. Click set and go into the first option and there is English. So you can set the date and time and it comes with this little SD card you can put it in and record images. Date and time, temperature unit, alert, measurements Temperature unit. Because this camera is being sent off to America and Americans use Fahrenheit so I am going to set it to Fahrenheit.

05:47 - So it turns out this FLIR camera actually works just out of the box. In the instructions, it says when you turn it on allow it to warm up for 10-15 minutes, after that you can just point it at any people and then it will work. It doesn’t have a lot of complicated procedure you need to do before you do this. And… after I measure my temperature, I am going to mirror the image from the FLIR camera to my laptop. They have this option in the USB mode. And USB camera means Oh that’s my… 35.6C, I don’t think that’s accurate.

06:39 - Okay, I am going to try again on the other arm. Okay, it is done and it says 36.1C, this time it is more accurate so now I am going to use the FLIR camera to point at me and then mirror it on my laptop. Okay, I just downloaded the software from their website so that I can mirror the image from the FLIR camera to my laptop. Okay, that’s 99 Fahrenheit. That’s a bit of a fever, that’s somebody you definitely want to check out. Even in the winter with a jacket on, all you need to get the reading is a face. Okay, I am impressed.

08:06 - If you have a school or business, of course, hand washing, social distance and masks always come first, but this is definitely something you’ll want to think about to help you get back up and running while still protecting your people. Keep an eye on my friends at Adafruit they’ll be posting how-to guides and DIY kits. They’re also an American manufacturing company, they build electronics right in the heart of New York City. So they’ll probably have some really good tips on how you can get back to work safely when the time is right. That’s it for today- I hope all of you that should be staying at home, are. We can beat this together.

08:47 - Until next time, remember if I can do it, anyone can do it!.