Project Overview

FLIR FX is a compact and portable Wi-Fi camera with a patent-pending flexible design that makes FLIR FX an easy-to-use, affordable video monitoring solution that adapts to the user’s needs. It can be used as outdoor security, home monitoring, sports recording and more.

Users have the ability to stream live HD video to a smartphone or tablet with or without an internet connection, record video to a removable Micro-SD card, review events that are recorded utilizing motion detection algorithms, communicate with two-way audio, and quickly review hours of video with FLIR’s Cloud-based RapidRecapTM capability.

Organisation

FLIR Sytems, Inc.

Project Brief

Imagine if you can monitor a day in a minute via your Smartphone. That is possible with the FLIX FX, a Wi-Fi-enabled video monitoring system for home, work, and play that works both online and off in a variety of environments. It’s perfect for watching over your place while you’re away or to take with you to capture your adventures on land, sea, air or under water.

With resolutions up to 180p and a wide 160° field of view, FLIR FX gives the user HD image quality. The camera also has an internal battery that can run up to four hours with continuous use.

Optimized for connectivity with smartphones and tablets, users can connect to the camera over the Internet or use the camera’s Wi-Fi hotspot to create a secure, direct connection without any Internet access. FLIR’S Cloud Services allows users to connect to the camera with iOS and Android mobile devices easily, and take full advantage of the camera’s connectivity, local recording, and playback features with no recurring fees. Other features include two-way audio, security-grade night vision, push notifications, smart alerts for motion and audio detection, temperature and humidity monitoring.

Project Innovation/Need

What truly sets FLIR FX apart is its innovative RapidRecap and SmartZones technology. RapidRecap is an adapted technology from law enforcement that creates a video that simultaneously presents objects, events and actions that occurred at different times to help users quickly review recorded footage. With RapidRecap, all the activity the camera captures is compiled into abbreviated clips, which makes it easy to quickly review everything that happened over a period of time—all at once.

SmartZones is a customizable push notification feature within the FLIR FX app that allows users to adjust the sensitive of the instant alerts function. Use it to select specific areas within the camera’s field of view for movement detection, which then triggers an instant alert. This feature prevents unimportant or irrelevant movement from trigging and recording false alarms.

Design Challenge

There are dozens of wireless IP monitoring cameras on the market. However, most lack two design features that reduce its respective usability. The first was to create a single camera that is more than just a security camera, a versatile device that is just as useful at home as on the road or on an adventure. FX’s modular design allows it to record in different modes: including for adventures via a waterproof case, in the car via a dash mount and a weatherproof outdoor housing for monitoring outside.

The second was to solve the issue of too much video footage to review. Over the course of a few days, one can compile hours of mostly uninteresting footage. RapidRecap solves this problem by presenting all the recording scenes at once with the ability to isolate and watch any specific moments of interest to essentially review a day of footage in just a few minutes.

Furthermore, RapidRecap requires significant computational resources so we were challenged to create a simple and accessible cloud service, called FLIR Cloud, that handles the processing so the camera size and hardware could be kept to a minimum for ultimate portability.

Sustainability

The versatility of the FLIR FX design ensures the device serves more than one function, including security, adventure and automotive contexts, enabling the customer to reduce the amounts of gadgets required to complete disparate tasks and thus reducing their personal carbon footprint.