Thermal By FLIR Program Expands with Industry-First Wearable and Mobile Handset Products for Commercial and Industrial Uses 

December 2, 2022

Teledyne FLIR, part of Teledyne Technologies Incorporated, has welcomed RealWear, the pioneer in assisted reality wearable solutions, as its latest Thermal by FLIR collaborator with the recent launch of the world’s first fully hands-free, voice-controlled thermal camera module. In addition, Thermal by FLIR cohort Ulefone recently introduced its first mobile handset featuring the Lepton 3.5 thermal camera module, the Power Armor 18T 5G Android phone.  

“Thermal by FLIR is a cooperative product development and marketing program that supports original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), including RealWear and Ulefone, to create innovative products leveraging Teledyne FLIR thermal camera modules and expertise,” said Mike Walters, vice president, uncooled thermal imaging camera cores, Teledyne FLIR.  “This program enables our partners to get to market faster, lower development costs, and accelerate business growth in collaboration with the world leader in uncooled thermal imaging technology.”   

An Industry-First Wearable 

The thermal camera module for the RealWear Navigator™ 500 headset empowers frontline workers to capture high-resolution visible and thermal images to quickly locate temperature anomalies in mission-critical industrial equipment. It marks the first commercially available system where the Lepton 3.5 thermal camera module is deployed as a wearable for assisted reality diagnostics. With the module mounted to the device, the user only needs to say voice commands—even in high noise settings up to 100dBa—to change settings and modes and to capture thermal imagery. 

“Empowering industrial frontline workers to capture thermal imaging data while being hands-free in hazardous environments gives workers a new superpower to complete tasks safely and productively,” said Rama Oruganti, chief product officer, RealWear. “Working through the Thermal by FLIR program not only enabled us to create the system faster with lower cost, but it also drove significant market opportunity.”  

Millions of Leptons 

The rugged Ulefone Power Armor 18T Android phone marks the 13th mobile device to incorporate the Lepton family of small, lightweight, low-power, and low-cost micro thermal cameras. The mobile handset market also represents the largest OEM market for Lepton by volume. The integration of Lepton into mobile devices, other tech accessories, and wearables has propelled the camera module to become the most widely adopted thermal imaging platform in history. There are more than three million Lepton units built into a variety of products in the manufacturing, security, defense, IoT, and consumer-technology industries.  

Engineering to Ecosystems  

Thermal by FLIR begins with development support from the application engineering team to assist partner organizations in optimizing the performance of the respective thermal camera systems. RealWear and Ulefone products leverage the Teledyne FLIR ecosystem, including using the patented MSX imaging capability, enhancing thermal imagery with embossed visible-light outlines, and compatibility with FLIR Thermal Studio software. This subscription software offers the advanced processing features needed to manage thousands of thermal images and videos, whether from a handheld thermal imaging camera, unmanned aircraft system (UAS), acoustic imaging camera, or optical gas imaging (OGI) camera. 

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