Flir C2

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Pros Slim, rugged design. Combination of thermal core and digital camera can show details better than just a thermal core.

Cons Expensive for a gadget. Primarily intended for those who would find uses for it at work. Bottom Line The Flir C2 is an accessible heat-based camera for contractors, home inspectors, and anyone else who can find a daily use for thermal imaging.

By Will Greenwald Thermal imaging has gotten more and more affordable, thanks to new thermal cores that are smaller and much less expensive than any produced before. The Flir One put a thermal camera into an iPhone case, and the Seek Thermal let you attach a thermal camera to your Android or iOS smartphone or tablet. The Flir C2 is a completely standalone product, and while its $699 price tag seems steep, it's one of the least expensive all-in-one thermal cameras available. It's not intended for the average consumer; the C2 is geared toward contractors, home inspectors, plumbers, electricians, and anyone else who can find a good use for heat-based imaging on a daily basis, making it a fairly accessible business expense. And the camera's sturdy, smartphone-like design is both easy to carry around and rugged enough to use where it's wet or dirty.

Design
The Flir C2 looks like a very rugged smartphone, with a chunky, angular plastic-and-rubber shell surrounding a 3-inch touch screen. The back of the camera looks like the Flir One iPhone case without the calibrating lever; a prominent circular protrusion holds both the camera's optical sensor and thermal imager. A small white LED sits to the upper left of the lenses to offer optional lighting. There's a large lanyard hole on the lower-left corner, which securely connects the included neck strap with detaching buckle. The only physical controls, a Power button and a shutter release, sit on the top edge of the camera, protected by a rubber coating that makes them a bit awkward to press.

Flir hasn't specified the ruggedness of the C2, but it seems very sturdy, and can take most drops and splashes in situations where they might be common. It can operate between 14 and 122 degrees Fahrenheit, and measure the temperature of objects between 14 and 302 degrees Fahrenheit.

Thermal Imaging and Use
Like the Flir One, the C2 uses a combination of a thermal sensor and a digital camera to create a more detailed picture than a thermal sensor alone can produce. The thermal sensor has a mere 80-by-60-pixel resolution, which works with the VGA (640-by-480) digital camera to create a 320-by-240 picture that shows the thermal image augmented by the details of the visual picture. This is a lower resolution than the Flir One's 528-by-396 images, but the C2 captures just as much thermal data. The Seek Thermal camera uses a 200-by-100 thermal sensor, but has no visual camera to bring more detail out of the shot, so its photos look blotchier, despite containing more thermal information.

The C2 is easy to use, but slightly clunky and limited. It takes about 30 seconds to start up, and freezes to calibrate a picture for a moment (which takes the place of the manual lever you had to pull down on the Flir One). There are only four palette options (Iron, Rainbow, High-Contrast Rainbow, and Grayscale), and unlike the Flir One, you can't shoot video. On the bright side, all you have to do is point the camera at anything and press the button to take a picture, and the dearth of options means the touch screen remains uncluttered.

Mostly for Contractors
The C2 is less of a novelty or toy than the Flir One, and more clearly intended for professionals and handymen than casual users. It's not for capturing amusing videos, sharing images on social networks, or having goofy fun with. It's for useful applications of thermal imaging, like detecting problems in wiring, plumbing, and insulation. And for that, it's incredibly useful. The rugged design and neck strap make it functional for any situation where you might be crawling around, navigating pipes and wires.

The Flir C2 is a one-piece solution for thermal imaging rather than an iPhone accessory, and compared with similar thermal imagers that come out of the box, it's a steal. Of course, for $700, you need a strong justification to pick up this camera rather than the much less expensive Flir One or Seek Thermal camera accessories for Android and iOS devices. If you're looking at the Flir One or Seek Thermal for fun and useful applications around the house, the C2 is a bit too pricey to recommend. If you're going to use thermal imaging every day while building or fixing things as part of your job, the C2 is a good option to consider, especially if a higher-end thermal imaging device is out of the question. 

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