A “No Point” IR Camera Built on an Adafruit Itsy Bitsy M4 Express

A FLIR (forward-looking infrared) camera is a great device for taking thermal images. You could, for example, use one to see if your car has an exhaust leak or if your grill has a cold spot. You can also use a FLIR camera to see at night. However, commercial FLIR cameras are expensive. Over on Hackaday, Szaja built a much more affordable version using an Adafruit Itsy Bitsy M4 Express.

The big caveat here is that it’s ultra low-resolution — just 8x8 pixels. So, it’s not capable of producing any detailed thermal images. But it is still a working infrared camera, and Szaja’s motivation was to learn CircuitPython, not to build a competitor to commercial products. The brain of his “No Point IR Camera” is an Itsy Bitsy M4 Express, which is a tiny development board that’s both powerful and affordable. This project should also work with other less-powerful boards, like the Itsy Bitsy M0 Express.

That generates the image using an AMG8833 infrared temperature sensor. The sensor itself measures the temperature in an 8x8 grid, so an 8x8 Adafruit NeoPixel matrix is perfect for displaying the image it creates. Each NeoPixel in the grid changes color based on the detected temperature, from blue for cold to red for hot. Szaja is still working on the perfecting the CircuitPython code, but the plan is to eventually make the camera battery-powered and put it inside a 3D-printed enclosure.