Cat S60 - jolly nice piece of kit - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: timgiles
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2016, 05:12:34 pm
content: Here in Sweden, the Cat S60 (Android mobilephone) with built in FLIR camera came out a month ago. I managed to snag one as soon as they appeared online and thought I would share my experience - a month on.The thermal camera is, I believe, a FLIR One. The app works well, it opens in around 5s and can take all the normal FLIR type pictures. Colour palettes available are: Iron, White Hot, Black Hot, Rainbow, Contrast, Arctic, Lava, Coldest and Hottest. Every 10s (ish) the two cameras resync themselves and there is a slight pause as the calibration is carried out. Areas, lines and points can be marked and the current temperature is added to the display. Pictures saved are saved with the thermal data so at a later date, you can see what temperature other parts of the image were, even if you did not have a point on a particular part.I recently used the IR camera to test two new PSUs I designed. It was really great to be able to see how the temperature rise was spreading from the IC(s) through the PCB. A separate, 'real' FLIR camera might be better, but given it cost me nothing (at least if I had gone Samsung S7 - that was 10% more expensive per month). My colleagues at work have already used it to check out a motherboard that they were having problems with and I have been assured that when winter comes along, I will need to visit their homes to take surveys of where their houses are leaking most heat.The phone is a Marshmallow device. It is reasonably responsive. I had read reviews of beta versions stating that apps took long to load, the thermal app sometimes minutes. I have noticed nothing of the sort. The phone feels as fast as my HTC One M8 it replaced. It is not as quick to use as the newest Samsung S7 - but some how at my age (40) it seems that the need to have something happen in 0.1s has left me! The standard apps are installed with a couple of extra settings and apps that Cat have put together. The phone is Dual SIM so there is also the standard support for that. One sim is the master - does everything, the second sim has phone making and SMS duties only. MicroSD storage card slot is available and supports all the cards sizes currently on the market - I assume once 512gb cards hit, it will support those as well.I believe the phone is the most waterproof on the market. IP68 with waterproof standard down to 2m and if you flip two switches (that cover the speaker and microphone) down to 5m. I dont think there is much call for IT architects to dive down to 5m, if I do, Ill update the review ;-) Cat have included a small app that will help clear any water that is left on the speaker - makes a lot of noises, seems to work. Cant believe I have put up with a non waterproof phone for all these years.Lastly - it would seem that Cat took Daves 'built like a brick dunny' to heart with this phone. Drop tested to 1.8m and I have seen video of 2.5m plus. Feels absolutely solid. Gorilla glass is gorilla glass, so I wont take a sledgehammer to it just for funsies - but being a clumsy arse, I have no worries leaving this around or having it in my pocket.All in all, I am very happy.

author: encryptededdy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 05:19:20 am
content: The S60 definitely seems like a very nice devices - especially because the thermal imaging app that it has built in seems to have way more functionality than the standard FILR One app (eg. it has min/max and a temp scale I believe).If possible could you please post some screenshots from the app? I'm kind of interesting in seeing how different the app is from the stock FLIR One app.

author: tomas123
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 07:35:07 am
content: I read, there is also the non deactivatable MSX overlay in live screen

author: timgiles
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 08:33:09 pm
content: Ill post some tomorrow.Tomas - I dont know exactly what that is! but hopefully the picture(s) will confirm what you say - or not!

author: tomas123
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 10:40:20 pm
content: Quote

author: e_sousa
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 09:56:23 pm
content: What a coincidence, i changed from a ONE M8(which i was very happy with and was planning on using forever) to the S60 almost a month ago as well and i am very happy with it.I considered getting a FLIR one before, but i am pretty sure i wouldn't carry it around with me all the time and would end up not having it when needed, also this thermal camera is enclosed in a very solid case, so im not afraid of getting it wet or dropping it.Quote from: encryptededdy on September 05, 2016, 05:19:20 amYes it is as you say, i will upload a screenshot i had here. This app has all the color palettes and stuff but also the non deactivatable MSX.If you have either the S60 or a FLIR one you may want to check out Georg's app with some nice new features including non MSX live view, he just added support for our phone.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/flir-one-android-app-with-full-lepton-sensor-resolution/msg910778/#msg910778