Should I buy a Thermal?

[TeddyBoy]

Hello, I am still a novice when it comes to drones, only having flown smaller "recreational" toy versions. I was originally looking at the DJI machines, but got steered in the direction of Parrot during my research for a drone to use on my property.
I live on a small farm and vineyard and have decided that I would like to have a drone for various reasons. I am certain that I will put the FLIR option to good use, which is why I have been looking at the Anafi Thermal. Today, just as I was about to buy the unit, I came upon the discussions on this forum about the Thermals falling out of the sky, the poorly functioning app, and the terrible Parrot customer service.
I like that Parrot doesn't have the NFZ interruptions that DJI has inserted into their protocol. I like the price as compared to DJI versions that have the FLIR option. But I am NOT interested in losing $2,000 on a drone that drops from the sky. Has the firmware issue been resolved?
So, I am asking if anyone here would recommend the Anafi Thermal, of should I look elsewhere?
Thanks for any patient responses anyone may have for this newcomer.

 

[Rocky the FS]

I doubt if the Thermal falls out of the sky any more often than the regular Anafi: I have not seen any indication of that on the Forum. I have a regular Anafi with a year and a half use and I have never had any problems with it. I have, however, been very attuned to the apparent problems of certain firmware revisions and refused to upgrade to them. My firmware is 1.6.3, which is about a year old. Thus it is imperative to determine which firmware the Thermal you intend to buy has installed and research the newer firmwares for it.

The 1.6.3. app has its peculiarities, but for me it functions pretty well. It's simple enough until you get into the autonomous functions which take a considerable bit of learning. I suspect that some of the complaints about the Thermal app result from making assumptions about how the software is supposed to work and not taking the considerable time required to really master it. That has certainly been true of the regular Anafi. I'm still learning new things after a year and a half.

One thing that stands out in the 18 months I've been on the forum is that taking the battery percentage at face value and assuming the unit will do what the manual tells us it will on a low battery is a recipe for disaster. I'll never take mine below 15% unless it is close at hand and over nice soft terrain like a lawn.

I agree that Parrot Service has a poor reputation, but luckily I've never had to use it. I'm WAY out of warranty anyway. I bought insurance for $70 a year instead. Some folks have had a good experience with them, it seems to be hit or miss and somewhat dependent on what country you are in.

 

[TeddyBoy]

Thanks, Rocky. That's encouraging input. Where did you buy the insurance?

 

[Hawaii Drone Imaging]

@TeddyBoy I've had my thermal for 1 year now. No MAJOR issues or problems as of yet. . I am on around 30-40 flights and only faced one situation where my camera would go through its boot up motions and I would continuously get a "Camera Needs Calibration" error and my camera icon on my display would be red. I would fly the aircraft and the camera would function perfectly though. That was with software version 1.6.3.

It was a while before Parrot released software 1.6.4. Once they did, I installed it and the camera error went away and the aircraft has been flying flawlessly since (Oct 2019). I have been prompted by the app to update, but have not updated to 1.6.5 or 1.6.7 because I noticed others with regular Anafi starting to have issues with those updates and aircraft were failing.

Do remember that a major thing that sets the thermal apart from the DJI version is that it IS radiometric. The thermal data can be extracted and analyzed with FLIR Tools software. NONE of DJIs sensors will do this.

People have said because of the sensor size, the Anafi Thermal is "useless". For me, inspecting insulation in walls, roofing discrepancies, and even busted steam lines underground can be picked up. True, not from 1/2 mile away like a 360 or 720, but 100/200ft seems to work just fine.

I feel "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" at the moment and will not update unless ABSOLUTELY needed.

I'm using
Freeflight App v 6.6.4
Skycontroller v 1.6.2
Anafi Thermal v 1.6.4
Hardware version HW_02

I'm using an iPhone 8s or at times an iPad Mini 3.

I have not been prompted as of yet by the app to "update" my batteries. I see others have posted this but not sure on the procedure in which they did this.

My aircraft was #180 out of the batch when released. I don't know if that may have anything to do with it, but just trying to provide you with as much info as I can give. Good luck

 

[Rocky the FS]

Thanks, Rocky. That's encouraging input. Where did you buy the insurance?

As an add-on to my home policy from State Farm.

 

[TeddyBoy]

Thanks. That's a great idea. I'll have to check with my insurance company.

Does anyone else have other thoughts on the Anafi Thermal? Yea? Nay? Or other options for a capable thermal drone?

 

[jaja6009]

@TeddyBoy I've had my thermal for 1 year now. No MAJOR issues or problems as of yet. . I am on around 30-40 flights and only faced one situation where my camera would go through its boot up motions and I would continuously get a "Camera Needs Calibration" error and my camera icon on my display would be red. I would fly the aircraft and the camera would function perfectly though. That was with software version 1.6.3.

It was a while before Parrot released software 1.6.4. Once they did, I installed it and the camera error went away and the aircraft has been flying flawlessly since (Oct 2019). I have been prompted by the app to update, but have not updated to 1.6.5 or 1.6.7 because I noticed others with regular Anafi starting to have issues with those updates and aircraft were failing.

Do remember that a major thing that sets the thermal apart from the DJI version is that it IS radiometric. The thermal data can be extracted and analyzed with FLIR Tools software. NONE of DJIs sensors will do this.

People have said because of the sensor size, the Anafi Thermal is "useless". For me, inspecting insulation in walls, roofing discrepancies, and even busted steam lines underground can be picked up. True, not from 1/2 mile away like a 360 or 720, but 100/200ft seems to work just fine.

I feel "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" at the moment and will not update unless ABSOLUTELY needed.

I'm using
Freeflight App v 6.6.4
Skycontroller v 1.6.2
Anafi Thermal v 1.6.4
Hardware version HW_02

I'm using an iPhone 8s or at times an iPad Mini 3.

I have not been prompted as of yet by the app to "update" my batteries. I see others have posted this but not sure on the procedure in which they did this.

My aircraft was #180 out of the batch when released. I don't know if that may have anything to do with it, but just trying to provide you with as much info as I can give. Good luck

DJI has several radiometric sensors, you just have to open up the wallet.

XT-R, XT2 and the mysterious XTS (Announced earlier 2020 then nothing else ever mentioned about it again. Even Large volume DJI Enterprise dealers do not know what's up with it) all offer radiometric capability and the ability to work in post in FLIR Tools.

I too have used the Lepton sensor for close in work. I have done some private home solar panels, flat roof moisture scans and when in close these sensors do work.
This is why losing my Anafi Thermal has hurt me as I do have some people inquiring about their single family home solar panels.

 

[TeddyBoy]

jaja6009, thanks for chiming in. I read your post in the other thread. You are one of the guys that caused me to hold off on buying the Anafi Thermal. Would you buy another Anafi Thermal? Based on your experience, I would guess not.

 

[TeddyBoy]

Is it possible that most owners of the Anafi Thermal are happy with them, and are just using them without issue?

 

[Rocky the FS]

Definitely! Here on the Forum, we only hear about the disasters....folks without problems don't post often except in the Photo of the Day section. Lots of users don't even visit the Forum. That doesn't mean there is no risk, just that it is impossible to assign a ratio of disasters to no problems at all. Only Parrot would know the ratio of warranty claims vs total units sold and they would not tell us. I suspect that it is substantially lower than anyone reading the Forum for 18 months like me would think.

 

[jaja6009]

jaja6009, thanks for chiming in. I read your post in the other thread. You are one of the guys that caused me to hold off on buying the Anafi Thermal. Would you buy another Anafi Thermal? Based on your experience, I would guess not.

As much as emotion would say to not purchase anything Parrot, others have had the same issue and had their bird repaired under warranty. I want to be objective here. My last post on my crash thread stated that the whole thread was my experience and others and yours may vary.

What are you planning to do with the Anafi Thermal if I may ask? At the end of the day, you can do some thermography work with this drone, but is most cases it is by far not the correct tool. I can dig a hole with a garden spade, but a real shovel will do the job better.

If you plan to use this as a thermography drone for solar panels (Checking for bad cells only), roof moisture scans and such, you will find that you will need to be low and you will take a long time to do this type work for large areas. If you need quantitative data like true temp, you will find this impossible as there is not enough resolution on the thermal to get the spot meter to be completely and only on the target of interest. For Search and Rescue when going over 50 ft from target you will start to run into issues. Over 100 ft and there is a good chance you will not find your target especially if the background temp is close to body temp. For firefighting it works really good. Large temperature differences are easily spotted even at distance. For scanning buildings for missing insulation and such it works pretty good, especially if do your scan with a large delta between indoor and outdoor temps.

My Anafi Thermal was an intermediate step. It was something of a training drone. I work in Public Safety and our drone fleet grows every year. I have a side drone business and it too is slowly growing. The Anafi was something to allow me to practice aerial thermography and in some cases actually provide it as a service. I now hope to be able to get a real thermal drone at both my real job and my side job and really start to use thermography.

It is a fun and useful tool. Do not let my experience be the reason you do not buy it. I'm sure you have read all of the different fall from the sky threads. Some had happy endings, others did not. Before this happened I loved that drone and while I type this I am looking at her on the computer desk smashed to pieces wishing she could fly again.

 

[Above and Beyond]

Hi,
My Anafi thermal is flying fine on all the current fw versions with a samsung S8 and ipad mini3.
I compared the thermal images to a M2ED and the mavic thermal images are about 300kB in size, compared to the Anafi Thermal which are about 4Mb. The Mavic doesnt have the jpg image embedded in it like the Anafi does and you cant get temp readings or run reports in FLIR tools like you can with the Anafi.
For the cost I think it's a great drone, better quality images are more costly so its horses for courses, but I think it's great for what I paid for it compared to the Mavic. It also only weight 315g so if and when the A2 CofC comes into force it will be better than the mavic mini for sub 500g drones imho.

The new Anafi Thermal USA is £7k + vat and is not radiometric (confirmed in the launch webinar by Parrot)

I did email Parrot Tech Support ref the Anafi Thermal and they confirmed the Anafi Thermal is radiometric.

I hope you enjoy what ever you choose to fly

Regards
Stuart

 

[TeddyBoy]

Great input, information, and comments from all. Thank you! I will post what I decide to do shortly, and update on my impressions. Any further posts are welcome.

 

[Seba]

Hi colleges, new on forum.
I want to ask about using anafi thermal for commercial inspection, especially checking PV generators and searching thermal leakage on buildings.
Will be anafi useful for that kind of stuff?

If that possible can you posted some pictures directly from dron. I want to check them in flir software.

 

[jaja6009]

Yes you can do inspections with it, but it is by far not the correct choice. Kind of like can you dig a 6 foot deep hole with a garden spade? Yeah you can, but a real shovel would actually be the correct tool.

Here are some images:

Target is:

Low Slope Roof .5:12 approx.
Metal Decking
Embedded Granular Roll Roofing
Unknown Insulation
Cant Strips at parapets
Metal Capping acting as counter flashing

Age: Unknown
Condition: Worn, loss of granulars in sections, patched repairs, cement/mastic repairs, peeled in C-D corner with opening into vehicle bay, active leaks in building

Weather and Time Conditions

0 precipitation in previous 48 hours
73 degrees F high in afternoon with heavy solar loading of roof
73% Humidity
No Ponding present
Wind < 15 mph

Images taken after official sunset (Civil Twilight)
If I remember correctly images were taken from 50 to 100 feet

 

[jaja6009]

Hi colleges, new on forum.
I want to ask about using anafi thermal for commercial inspection, especially checking PV generators and searching thermal leakage on buildings.
Will be anafi useful for that kind of stuff?

If that possible can you posted some pictures directly from dron. I want to check them in flir software.

Here are some images taken inside. It can easily inspect inside due to being so close to the walls. Just keep in mind the low pixel resolution (Think 720 vs 1080) and higher than optimum NETD (Think the ability of the thermal sensor to be able to see small temperature differences or the resolution of the sensor) create a lot of noise with the Flir Lepton sensor.

Picture 1: Notice small patch of missing insulation to the left of the corner. With my handheld with 320 resolution I could see that there was a 2x4 blocked in between the studs that caused the insulation gap.
Picture 2: Easily found wet area in the sheetrock. Also notice the thermal bridging allowing the framing members to be seen.
Picture 3: Same room as picture 2, but to the left of it. I found this by accident, but now it has gotten worse and there is staining in the sheetrock.

 

[Seba]

Roof inspection is only additional, main goal is to check PV solar panels, only IR can detect hot spots. Using dron with thermal camera that should be easy. Mainly want to check privet instalations, they are around 3-5kWp.

What is the main reason why we could not flight so close as needed, wind? Sorry for that question but I'm not a dron pilot yet.

Thanks for the photos!

 

[jaja6009]

Roof inspection is only additional, main goal is to check PV solar panels, only IR can detect hot spots. Using dron with thermal camera that should be easy. Mainly want to check privet instalations, they are around 3-5kWp.

What is the main reason why we could not flight so close as needed, wind? Sorry for that question but I'm not a dron pilot yet.

Thanks for the photos!

You can fly as close as you are comfortable with. For a private house you will be okay. For a solar field it would take too long. If you are too high over them the lack of pixels on the Lepton could have you easily miss hot spots. You need to have at least 1 pixel completely cover the target, but it is more like 3x3 pixels cover the target. So if you have a photovoltaic cell that does not completely fill a pixel and parts of other cells that are not hot are in that pixel it may show as not being hot on your screen/image. Flying low ensures that you get the most pixels on target.
If you are going to do this as a business, get the most thermal camera you can get from the beginning. $2000 is a nice chunk of a more proper tool. I am not sure where you are located, but if you are going to offer thermal imaging services you should obtain a thermography certification so you can accurately interpret thermal images. It takes education as well as experience to be able to consistently and correctly interpret thermal images.