If you work in the mechanical, electronic or electrical industry then a rugged phone with built in thermal camera is the way forward. It used to be a market dominated by Bullitt phones with CAT branding, but now the market is widening with the Chinese rugged phone manufacturers adding the Flir Lepton sensors to their flagship phones. The Blackview BV9900 Pro is one of those flagship phones. It may not be a flagship phone to fashionistas clamouring after the latest Apple or Samsung product - but to a technical person, having a waterproof, ruggedized phone with built in thermal imaging makes it the blue collar equivalent of a flagship phone.
I've been using this phone for 4 months now and while I've not "tested" its water and impact resilience as much as some might wish, it's been in a holster pocket of my work trousers every day, and it's been fine. More than that, it's the fastest phone I've ever had. That's quite unusual for ruggedised phones as they tend to lag a bit behind the normal phones in processing power.
The thermal imaging is very handy for spotting overheating connectors, cables, motors, circuit boards, bearings etc at a distance. It can spot problems before they become more serious, and shorten the time required to find a fault. The thermal sensitivity is so good that you can even pinpoint a faulty unit when everything has been turned off. Or see if something has been active recently by its residual heat or lack thereof. Thermal cameras can also indicate water ingress in walls and allow tracing of hot water pipe routes under floors.
I reckon that in the future, many phones will have a thermal imaging camera as standard.
One other unusual feature this phone has is the ability to work at very low temperatures. Between -15 and -30C it will go into a low power mode to protect the battery, but still allow use as a phone and basic camera. I don't really plan on testing that.
The firmware is more or less stock Android and the phone is rootable for those who like such things. (The CAT S61 was locked down in that regard.)
I bought this phone from the Aliexpress store linked to from the manufacturer's site, but it's also available from Amazon and other sources. Note the difference between the BV9900 and the BV9900 Pro. Only the "Pro" one has the thermal imaging camera.
Here's a link to the manufacturers website:-
They have quite a wide range of rugged phones, some with thermal imaging and some without.
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