Thermal imaging vs Infrared thermometer. These two types of names are something I’m pretty sure you have come across before in places like shopping malls and offices before especially now with the worldwide pandemic that is taking place as it used almost everwhere you go! But what actually is the difference and which one is better?
What is Thermal imaging?
Thermal imaging helps you to see an object heat signature through the use of infrared radiation of itself to form an image for us humans to see. Thermal imaging cameras are the ones commonly used to record down the temperature of various objects in the specific place, and then assign each temperature a shade of a color, this will let you see how much heat is actually radiating in comparison to the objects surrounding it. There is two types of temperature to take note based on the color. Cold temperature normally is a range of blue, purple, or green, while warm temperatures are identified with red, orange, or yellow colors instead.
What about Infrared thermometer?
Infrared thermometer has a simillar concept where it is also an electromagnetic radiation in which heatwaves are emitted by the object at a specific area. However,the difference will be the wavelengths in fix intervals. Unlike infrared which is defined in fix intervals, Thermal radiation depends on absolute temperature and thus, infrared tends to be short wavelengths while thermal imaging tends to fall under medium to longer wavelengths. IR or also called laser thermometer consists of a lens to pick up infrared energy to the detector which in return, will help converts it to display in units of temperature that is readable for us to understand. The problem with this is that is less accurate due to the distance of the object while also requires a lot of time if you are dealing with multiple objects at once compared to a thermal imaging which detects at a futher distance while maintaing high accuracy and process speed.
