There might be a startup opportunity here. If these devices have a real economic use -- spotting heat leaks -- and the only available alternative is orders of magnitude more expensive.
I don't do hardware (although this project looks simple), but it would be interesting to own one of these and a lot of people like me might be willing to part with a few bucks for the privilege of owning one (especially if it helps spot leaks that are adding to the heating bill).
It's basically an IR thermometer that outputs a color instead of a number reading. Those "gadgets" are already pretty cheap, so not sure if replacing the expensive passive display with a 15 cent rgb led would make anyone profit.
Not sure how much profit it'd be able to squeeze out of the IR thermometer[1] market, which are already in fairly common use (the building maintenance people at work use them) and it looks like you can get one for as little as $25.
Previously I saw a project which used a scanning pan-tilt head to collect data, but they used a narrow beam temperature sensor: MLX90614ESF-DCI which includes a black metal barrel.
http://www.cheap-thermocam.tk/
Thanks! Total cost of materials was ~$50 or so excluding the Arduino which I already had. With most projects like this one I try switching to a barebones ATMEGA328 (the microcontroller at the heart of the Arduino) if I can to save money, but in this case I needed the Arduino's onboard 5V regulator. I assembled the entire thing this evening.
Great point, but at the time I didn't feel like running to the store to buy one at 6:00 PM on New Year's Eve. I very well might still do exactly what you are saying!
I bet this would look pretty cool outside mixed in with some other light painting gear. Always a pain to get the background/environment the colours you want.
I don't do hardware (although this project looks simple), but it would be interesting to own one of these and a lot of people like me might be willing to part with a few bucks for the privilege of owning one (especially if it helps spot leaks that are adding to the heating bill).