Gadget Review: Thermal Master DV2 - Infrared Birdwatching Scope

The good folks at Thermal Master have sent me their DV2 camera to review. As their name suggests, this is a thermal / infrared camera - they've specifically designed this for bird watching and animal spotting. Let's put it through its paces and see how it compares to the competition!

Straight away you can see it is different from normal IR cameras - they tend to have a small fixed screen and a rubber button interface. This has a lush touchscreen which displays the thermal image and is used to control the camera. The screen can go bright enough to be easily visible in full daylight, and you can dim it down to something more appropriate for night-time viewing.

OK, enough waffle, time to get snapping!

Photos

Here are some shots from the camera of various bits of wildlife near me. I haven't edited these images, they're exactly what you get from the camera.

The resolution is 512x384. There's no EXIF metadata - so no location information.

There's also no in-picture thermal gradient so you can't see the exact temperature of an object. This is designed for spotting animals, not working out how hot your electronics are. The datetime is burned in to the image but can be turned off.

It has the ability to almost totally remove the background "noise" of the sky - making it excellent for spotting things on the wing.

Filesize is about 20KB per photo. So you can fit will over a million images on the ~32GB internal storage. Digital zoom goes up to 8X.

Videos

The static images don't really do it justice. It's also possible to shoot video. This gives you a reasonable idea of what you'll see on the touchscreen.

Video resolution is the same as the photos - 512x384 - and runs at 30fps. File size is around 40MB per minute. So about 12 hours of footage can be stored. I've re-encoded these videos to be smaller while keeping the same quality.

Here's a friendly fox I found - I've cycled through the various settings so you can see how they work.

Again, as with the photos, there's no metadata and the datetime is burned in. Here are a couple of cats playing around in the park.

Twisting the lens allows you to adjust the focus - it is really impressive the amount of detail it can pick up.

There's no video stabilisation (use the tripod mount if you need it) and there's no audio.

RTSP

You can also stream the video to a computer, VLC, or anything else which will take an RTSP stream.

The URl will be rtsp://[IP Address]:8554/ch0 - that will get you a 20fps stream of exactly what the camera is seeing.

Range and Detection

It reckons it'll detect a human's heat signature from around 900 metres away.

There are several modes which will let you see more or less detail. That's particularly important if you're just interested in the hottest part of the image, or if you need to photograph something against a relatively warm background.

The App

This'll pair with your Android phone using the Thermal Masters app. It's a bit of a beast - around 200MB. That's because it's the same app for all their cameras and contains PDFs for several different models. Despite the relatively high download numbers, it has zero reviews.

Like lots of software from hardware manufacturers, the app is basic but serviceable. It connects to your DV2 via WiFi. You can either be on the same network or connect the camera to your phone's hotspot.

Looking through the app's code, it appears to use OpenCV, ffmpeg, and some other popular Open Source libraries. Sadly, the required attribution is missing.

The app is great for monitoring the camera, you can zoom in on the image and fiddle with some of the settings. But you can't actually trigger a photo or video recording! That's a bit annoying.

Linux

For our penguin powered friends, this shows up as 1f3a:1000 "Allwinner Technology Prestigio PER3464B ebook reader (Mass storage mode)". It's a basic drive which lets you copy the media back to your computer via USB-C. Easy as.

Comparison

So how does it compare to the Topdon TS004 Thermal Camera? The Topdon is also marketed at the bird-spotting crowd and, on the surface, has fairly similar features.

The most obvious difference is the user interface. The TS004 is a Monocular - so you need to shove your eye into the end to see anything.

With the DV2, you've got a big screen to look at - which is generally much more pleasant. That display of the DV2 is a touchscreen which makes it pretty easy to interact with - whereas with the TS004 you have to repeatedly mash buttons to change any settings.

In terms of resolution, both have a standard 256×192 sensor. The upscaling on the DV2 is good - but doesn't fundamentally change how much thermal information there is.

But it is the thoughtful little extras which make the DV2 useful. There's a built-in laser pointer which is useful for working out exactly what you're aiming at. At the bottom is a standard tripod mount, so you can rig it up somewhere to monitor an area.

Slightly bizarrely, it comes with an optional Picatinny Rail adaptor. That screws into the side of your DV2 and allows you to add firearm accessories! So if you ever wanted to add a sniper scope to your thermal camera…

Alright, a regular range-finder will also attach to it 😆

The battery is a bit of an odd one. You can physically remove the battery and place it in its own USB charger. The battery is a 1INR22/71 which is a chunky beast. The charger comes with two slots (although only one battery is included) so you can quick-swap to a full battery if you need to. There is a USB-C port on the bottom, if you want to charge it the normal way.

With the TS004, the only way to stream video was via the app. The DV2 will connect to any WiFi network and present an RTSP stream. The built in WiFi is useful for grabbing firmware updates.

The DV2 also suffers a little from the lack of a trigger button for taking photos. When held in the hand, it feels natural to click the button under the thumb finger - instead, that toggles the laser. Taking a photo means tapping away on the screen to get to a sub-menu. Annoyingly, your phone can't be used as a remote control.

One thing in the TS004's advantage - it's lens cap is attached to the body of the unit. The DV2's is a separate rubber cap which comes off completely. Best remember to stick it in the supplied carrying case, eh?

The TS004 also has built-in animal recognition. It can detect heat signatures and tell you if they're a bird or a human. However, it always misidentified English foxes as Wild Boars! So was of limited use.

The DV2 uses AI to upscale the quality of the images rather than trying to detect what it is actually looking at.

In general, the DV2 is easier to use and produces seemingly better quality media. But having to tap the screen multiple times to take a photo or video is slightly annoying.

Price

All the infrared cameras I've reviewed have been expensive. This one is no different. At the moment it is in stock for £459.

You can use the code THERMBIRD10 for 10% off at the official store or from Amazon.com.

That's a chunk of change - but you do get a lot of tech for the price. This isn't designed for finding hotspots in your home, it's excels at picking out wildlife - and the screen is big enough for several people to gather round to see what you've spotted.

Final Thoughts

This is one of the better thermal imaging devices that I've reviewed. The large touchscreen makes it so much easier to control than anything else on the market - all the others have squishy rubber buttons. It is mostly a delight to use, if you can put up with the slightly strange process of taking a photo.

Thermal cameras are still very expensive - the sensors are low resolution and sometimes flaky. The DV2 does a great job of producing a usable images and videos.

The app is no worse than the competition. It really ought to inform users about the use of Open Source code though.

The addition of the laser pointer isn't as gimmicky as I'd thought. I've no use for the Picatinny attachment, but I can see how it could be useful.

If you want to go wildlife spotting, this is probably the device to get. It captures an incredible amount of detail and is excellent at picking up the faintest heat signatures.