24 June 2013

IR motion sensors typically use one or at most two IR sensor elements, combined with a Fresnel lens.  This can tell you if there is movement in front of the sensor – but not much else.  It can’t tell you where the movement is, or which direction it is going.

Enter the ULIS Micro80P thermal imaging sensor, which has an 80x80 array of sensor elements. It can even count people in the room, enabling thermostats to respond more effectively or be used as a thermal imaging camera.  It’s sampling now, and we’ve contacted ULIS to get prices – if it’s reasonable we’ll put together a breakout board to get the most out of those 6,400 sensor elements, so you can make your own thermal imaging iphone adapter.