This dongle-sized thermal camera is astonishingly good

I test plenty of phones, and I rely on a thermal camera to measure how hot devices get while testing. I use it the most while running extended gaming tests, as that’s inevitably when a phone gets hot. This year’s devices run hotter too, as evidenced by the Nubia Z70 Ultra hitting a toasty 59 degrees.

While having a dedicated thermal camera is great, you get USB-C dongles these days that provide the same utility, and they’re just as good. I’ve been using Thermal Master’s P2 for just over a month, and the dongle-sized module has proven to be reliable. The thermal camera costs $199 on Amazon and Thermal Master’s website, and that’s decent considering the quality of the sensor.

The P2 weighs just 10g, and comes in a tiny plastic package with a built-in carabiner attachment, allowing you to hook it to a key ring or bag with ease. The camera connects via USB-C, and I didn’t have any issues pairing it with my Vivo X200 Pro, Honor Magic 7 Pro, Find X8 Ultra, and Xiaomi 14.

The diminutive size means you can take the P2 anywhere, and it is great in daily use. It has a native resolution of 256×192, but uses a custom algorithm to double it to 512×384, delivering a clean image. I use it to identify hot spots on phones and other gadgets — including notebooks and my iPad Pro M4 — and it is quite effective at doing so. It’s able to measure between -4 degrees to 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit, and it gets 15x zoom.

The best part is that you can manually adjust color palettes — there are 12 available in total. The camera does a great job identifying various zones within an image, and there’s an overlay that lets you preview the actual image alongside the thermal view. You can shoot video along with photos, and while the resolution isn’t the best, it lets you pick out any hot or cold spots without any issues.

At a power draw of just 0.3W, it doesn’t consume much power either. Ultimately, the smaller size is what makes the Thermal Master P2 noteworthy; while I used other thermal cameras in the past, they’re considerably bigger, and the P2 does just as good a job. So if you need a thermal camera to monitor issues in a power line, identify leaks around the house, or see just how hot your devices get, the P2 is a decent enough choice.

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