Building Wellness - Thermal Imaging Cameras: 101’s & Core Features
New technology is always being pushed during a crisis. Often well intended, it can result in exhaustive buy-now messages. We have recently been awash with a few ‘must have technologies’ – including Thermal Imaging Cameras.
In terms of automating new manual processes which are resource and time intensive we couldn’t get past the business case – for some businesses this is a clear opportunity to save time and effort via well-placed cameras. But, how to tread the new terrain?
Having seen the technology deployed well, without ridiculous cost, we decided that providing some background knowledge on what to look for in Thermal Imaging Cameras (without costing the Earth).
What to look for - Key Performance Metrics:
The following summary was taken by comparing key performance metrics across 5 product offerings:
Number of people scanner per second and distance (range) are critical to accuracy, and differ based on camera specifications.
Recognition time can be 1-3.5 seconds per person (including social distancing, this still means between 822-3,000 people per hour!)
Accuracy is usually stated within a range of 0.3-0.5°C. It can be adjusted for people/minute increases, at the expense of temperature accuracy;
They come in multiple formats - Handheld, Tablet, Small (Bullet/Turret/Dome) or Full Body Camera.
Often spruiked as having Artificial Intelligence (AI) – make sure you qualify this (substance, not sizzle).
Facial Recognition identifies faces, clever systems zoom in on the inner eye (which has been linked to obtaining temperature the most accurately.)
Where mask detection plays a role the AI system has been trained further.
Installation is relative to the format of the camera and can be temporary or permanent. Most come ‘plug and play’ (but see connectivity and integration below:)
Placement is important:
Basic systems will be influenced by cold external influences (walking in from outside where it is cold) or hot internal influences (standing under a heating duct), but it need not be intrusive/expensive.
More advanced systems apply algorithms to adjust for ambient conditions and external influences
Connectivity (online or offline) and integration (the system stands-alone or sits inside your Security or IT networks) are important to consider (but aren’t prohibitive.)
They can be linked to enable cross-camera tracking if you expand beyond just entry points.
Good systems have alert functions.
SMS or Email notification should flag the appropriate internal team(s);
Entry Point personnel (Reception, temporarily manned entry points etc) flagged to conduct a quality control and confirmation scans.
They can do more – good entry point cameras can support other purposes (dangerous item detection, unauthorised visitor flagging or people counting).
“Long story short – they can work! Just make sure it brings efficiency/cost improvement to your (new) manual processes, and that you ask about these metrics to get ‘industry expected’ norms (and straight answers on what’s important!).”
Hopefully these tips, tricks and insights will support your understanding of Thermal Imaging Camera technology.
Long story short – they can work! Just make sure it brings efficiency/cost improvement to your (new) manual processes, and that you ask about these metrics to get ‘industry expected’ norms (and straight answers on what’s important!).