I’ve been lucky enough to work for and with a number of great businesses and companies, including time with a British endurance racing team. One of the objects that we made extensive use of in the endurance team was an infrared temperature sensor, used for measuring heat across a number of racing car components. Mostly, these consisted of clever pipework under the rear clam, but also included brake components and tires, which were difficult and dangerous to touch. A bit more interesting than it reading several degrees below freezing as I sat down to start this article! Thus, I’m already interested in Robogaia Industries’ Kickstarter project seeking funding for a nifty infrared sensor that plugs into a smartphone or tablet’s headphone socket and turns it into a wireless, precise, non-contact thermometer. It’s called the “Kalt” and Robogaia Industries are based in Cleveland. They’re looking to raise $10,000 over the next three weeks to cover their development and manufacturing costs.
In common with other infrared thermometers, the Kalt reads a temperature by being pointed towards the object. It’s a small unit, about the size of a box of matches and works via a companion application on either an Android or iOS device, fully powered from the device so it doesn’t need extra batteries. The application can also be used to track temperature changes over a period of time and can log temperature changes. Currently, the application must be running in order to detect the sensor and display readings and there’s no background logging mode yet.
Kalt’s app also displays a graph that tracks the temperature as it changes over a period of time and has a built-in temperature recording feature so that you can store readings in a file. As for the unit, it’ll be available in blue, yellow, orange and green, so it’ll be perfect for the racing team (yellow is the fastest color) The casing is also translucent, like one of my favorite legacy Palm devices, so it’s nifty, right? At this stage, Robogaia has just passed the halfway point and we have twenty four days left to go to pledge your support. You can reserve your own Kalt accessory for $41 and you’ll receive additional sensors or extension cables. Sensors are estimated to deliver in April but please bear in mind that sometimes, Kickstarter projects miss their deadlines. What do you think? Is this the sort of project you’d like to support? Do you have a use for a wireless thermometer? Okay does anybody not have a purpose for a wireless thermometer..? Let us know in the comments below.
