Very disappointed. Do not buy for thermal video.

3.0

I had a Fluke Ti32 for 6 years, and when its temperature went off by 100F Fluke wanted $2,270 to re-calibrate it. A new one of that resolution was $3K now, so I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to this $11,500 TiX580 for its video capability, and 1280x960 "super resolution" and multi-sharp focus.
First, the good: The hardware itself is nicely made. Sturdy. Touch menus are a vast improvement. Bright screen. Thermal stills from this camera with SuperResoution are very good (though the visible camera image is laughably bad). Clicking the laser-autofocus almost almost focuses nicely (though there is NO constant auto-focus like a normal video camera, you must stop, and click the laser-focus button each time as you move around). There's a disparity in what it can do vs. what Fluke implies it can do. You cannot use SuperResolution and MultiSharp focus at the same time. So while it can take a multisharp everything in focus still, it can only do it at 640x480, which they also aren't upfront about.

But it gets more seriously bad for video:

This is a "60Hz" camera. It displays its own screen at 60Hz. It will output 480P 60Hz out of its HMDI port. However, it records video at only 24 FPS .AVI files, and for temperature data video, only 9 FPS! .IS3 format files. The sales specs are not upfront about this at all.

Their software is a mess. Their older Fluke SmartView software was seriously Windows 7 looking, but it is stable and gets the job done. You can still use it for stills from this camera. It does not support the .IS3 video files though. Their new "Fluke Connect" must be used to read those. Fluke Connect software looks prettier, but it is hugely unstable, very slow to do anything, and the real kicker: cannot read the temperature data from .IS3 video! I wanted to record video of equipment heating up over time, and mark the hotspots and averages using their marker overlays in the software. The Fluke Connect software shows the color changes of heat in your videos, but whatever temps were recorded on the first frame do not change at all during the video! You literally cannot record the temperature changes in their temperature videos. The phrase "you had one job!" springs to mind.
3) I've waited weeks to write this review because I wanted to give Fluke technical support a chance to respond to my bug finds that I sent them pictures and the videos from illustrating the issues. After weeks of waiting and getting only "we escalated this" from their general technical support, today their thermography team sent me back a "we've been meaning to update our manual and sales literature about the 9 FPS recording", a "what software are you using to view the video" (I was pretty clear that only Fluke Connect could even open the .IS3 files), and a "could you send us an .IS3 file?"... which I'd sent a dropbox link to one in my support request to them.
In short, their technical support is ridiculously slow and not particularly interested in even being aware of their issues, much less fixing them. I debated trying FLIR this round, and in hindsight I should have given them a shot.

TEquipment Response: Thank you for your feedback. We have also shared this review with Fluke to make them aware of your concerns. Please note you can also contact TEquipment for help and support on this item.

Verified Purchase K. Reeves on Jun 28, 2019 I found this helpful (5)