Review

Phone thermal cameras: useful tool, terrible marketing

The sensors are better than they were. The claims made about them are worse than they were.

Rania Saab

Published 14 July 2026
6 min read
10k reads

Phone thermal cameras: useful tool, terrible marketing — XENVORA Photograph: A beach ball-sized infrared camera, part of the Forward Looking Infrared Radar, has been mounted on the right siderail of NASA's Huey UH-1 helicopter. Original from NASA. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel., NASA / Rawpixel (CC0) · Licence

6.8 Verdict score

Every device runs the same instrumented suite: sustained load, thermal logging, power draw at the wall, and a two-week daily-use period before a score is assigned.

Two phones in this round ship a genuine microbolometer, not a colourised low-resolution guess. Against a calibrated blackbody source, both landed within 2.5°C across the range we care about.

What it cannot do

It cannot find a stud. It cannot diagnose a fever. It cannot see through a wall, glass or a jacket, and every marketing image implying otherwise should be retired.

Where it earns a place is dull and real: spotting a hot breaker, checking whether underfloor heating actually runs, and finding the draught around a window frame.

A 6.8 reflects a capable sensor attached to claims that will disappoint most buyers within a week.