Patent ID: 8549428

Claim:
A portable noncontact thermometer comprising: a hand-held housing defining an aperture for ingress of incident thermal energy from a target location; a thermometer module including a noncontact thermal energy detector; said thermometer module further including a microcontroller operative to interpret electrical signals derived from an output of said noncontact thermal energy detector so as to determine temperature at said target location; a graphical display device fixed with respect to said housing capable of providing a graphical user interface having multiple screens variously showing one or more types of graphical items, wherein the types of graphical items comprise numbers, text, or functional icons; said graphical display device being a dot matrix display device having a plurality of pixels in rows and columns; and circuitry in electrical communication with said graphical display device so as to produce said graphical user interface such that a particular display area of the graphical display device is used to display different types of the one or more types of graphical items in different screens of said multiple screens, wherein a screen of said multiple screens displays a tab proximate to a function button in said plurality of function buttons indicating a function of the function button.