Can’t get close enough.
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It works with light so it can’t measure the heat of transparent water. Instead, you got the temperature of the containing vessel.
The Amazon page says “Accuracy: ±1.5%”. Percentage of temperature degrees makes sense only with a zero-based scale such as Kelvin. At room temperature of 300 deg K, accuracy is ±4.5 degrees K or about 8 degrees F. That sounds about right for a product at this price point.
That page also claims an accuracy of “±1.5℃”, but that contradicts the first claim and seems unlikely.
never thought about that; very cool. i just use it to check for drafts and such, but mostly to play with the cat.
mis-read the diagram; thank you.
though a 5.3" spot at 5’ away still isn’t going to be wicked accurate for a mug of raccoon or a coffee in the driveway 
A contractor came through our house a couple months back with a thermometer not entirely unlike that, and used it to figure out which parts of our house were, for some reason, entirely lacking insulation.
(the answer, apparently, was a strip of wall between the first and second floor. it doesn’t take a lot of totally uninsulated wall to freeze your pipes)
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Many non-contact IR thermometers have an “emissivity” setting that allows you to correct for surfaces and objects that are not perfect black-body radiators.
Since most things aren’t perfect black-body radiators, some units with settable emissivity default to 93% or so.
If you want any sort of precision in your readings, you really need to figure out the thermal emissivity of the surface or object you’re checking, and correct as necessary.
Thermoworks has a nice Emissivity Table for common substances (though note their caveat that real-world values may differ somewhat due to surface roughness, color, and temperature).
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Did you measure the back radiator grills while the motor was running?
The heat would only radiate from it while the motor is running and shortly after. If it wasn’t you’re just measuring the thermal load of the outside of the fridge itself.
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I’m pretty sure that the heat is coming from within the freezer itself.
BTW, this is a good demonstration of the FLIR One’s dual cameras. The outline of the freezer is provided by the visible-light camera and merged with the infra-red to make an image that’s much easier to interpret later.
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Damn it!
Why do I read BB or listen to BB Gadgets podcast, read Cool Tools or listen to its podcast?
Thank glob I have Amazon Prime.
Is it here yet?
Damn it!
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Totally. If you actually care about accuracy, there are still cases where putting a black anodized aluminum heat sink on the thing you’re measuring and measuring that with an IR thermometer is more practical than using a thermocouple.
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Give it a few days, you’ll stop.Mine went back into the package after a week.
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This was exactly the answer I was looking for, and that ThermoWorks is the exact model I use. It is fantastic.
I’ve never gotten anything from ThermoWorks that wasn’t top notch in design and make. In addition to the pocket probe, I’ve got 2 of the counter-top timer/remote temperature probes, a small IR temp reader, and a large read-out, digital entry, very loud timer that gets a lot of use.
I’ve also got a couple of probe clips that let me suspend a remote probe tip into a pot of liquid. You can then use your probe as a candy thermometer, or just monitor how close that pot of pasta water is to boiling.
I’ve given their stuff as gifts to people I know who like to cook, and they’re always well received.
Same, the $19 probe as a complete no-brainer secret santa/stocking stuffer for people who like to cook.
In that style chest freezer there is no “coil in the back”. The condenser is wrapped on the outside of the insulation and makes the entire case itself dissipate the heat. As a side benefit of this design is they do not need electric door heaters to stop frost buildup, so they are more efficient.
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This is one of those tools like a heat gun that once you have it, you use it all the time. I’ve used mine to check the temperature on my truck brakes on mountain roads for example.
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I am looking forward for the thermal imaging modules getting yet cheaper.
A kitchen stove with one built above it in the fume extractor, with a small display, would provide the cook with a lot of information about how the pots and pans behave. (A see-through augmented reality display is a more portable alternative.)
A similar thing could be integrated to a welding helmet, initially as just a small standalone display, later as a synthetic image; two cameras for each eye for high dynamic range (and ability to see the molten metal pool under the arc and everything around, somebody has a prototype with a 1:1000,000 contrast), with thermal image keyed in to see if things are preheated correctly and what is too hot to touch.
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