I have acquired a FLIR One, Gen 3 for work for a specific purpose, but I would like to see what everyone thinks about other possible, survival related, uses. I will try to test as many of the ideas as possible.

I would think there are good applications in SAR, looking for bodies that are still emitting heat(hopefully). How detectable would the signature be if a person were under heavy vegetation cover, or a tarp?

I can think of a bunch of none-survival applications, like detecting exposed fossil bone, or nesting bird locations, etc.

Interesting topic!

Hikermor, you may want to try a UV flashlight as well. They are inexpensive and can help detect many different things that otherwise would be invisible to the naked eye. A very good one will run about $30.

I plan on going outside and looking at the house tonight (temps in the teens), and see if I can get my son to go hide in the bushes. I am not sure yet of the range of the FLIR, but will try it out.

Any ideas at all of how to test the capabilities wold be appreciated.

Sounds like a fun thing to test!

Montanero ...

this is on the crazy side ... while testing. maybe, don't try this in freezing temps.

1. Check you are visible under normal conditions (body heat). Then hose yourself down with cold water, and see if you become invisible. Seems like maybe it should work, but for how long?

2. Try hiding behind rocks, but your torso is visible. When the morning is cold (the rocks are cold), you should be easy to see. But later in the day, when the sun's rays warm the rock surface up to 98.6 deg F, do you blend in? Again ... that ought to work. but does it?

Just ideas.

Pete

1. Reveal the shape and extent of the hidden tang in knives like Moras. (I use strong magnets, but FLIR would be better.)

2. Find small game (mice, voles, birds) under cover or snow. (Snowy owls have this ability -- IR sensor pits in their face.)

3. Can you see the outline of a person hiding beside the front door of your house? Right through the wall? (ID possible threat and target?)

4. Determine if a steak (or roast) is rare, medium, or well done?
(Surely you knew that BBQ would come into this eventually. Let 'em eat steak!)

5. Check if a polar bear is skulking around your arctic hut. (Oh wait, don't bother, it's been tried. They are so energy efficient that they barely register, unless you see an open maw with fangs, in which case it's probably too late.)

6. Epilogue: In case you all haven't figured it out yet, I want one!!!

my cousin received a fire department quality thermal camera by mistake that was being shipped back for upgrade... of course, we had to play with it while the FD was coming to pick it up... look at your electrical panel

It is good at picking up heat behind the walls, good for a safety survey of your house.

The cold water dousing does change the surface temperature for a very short while.

So far, I do not believe it can see a body through a wall from outside, but it can detect temperature differences through 1 sheet of dry wall for sure.

I think all of the small critters are inside where it is warm right now. I didn't see any moving around.

We don't have much in the way of rocks around here, but I will try that if I go where there are some (sand hills around here).

It can't see through glass, it only picks up the reflections.

It also is subject to reflection from certain metal surfaces, which we discovered at my job. You will get a false hotspot indication reflection when it happens. We worked around this by aiming indirectly at what we were working on.

Mylar survival blankets are supposedly somewhat effective at hiding thermal heat signatures.

The thinker grabber all weather blankets are really effective. Pretty sure there was a story about Afghan insurgents using them to evade thermal detection.