Three domains. One sensor stack.
The physics is the same in all three. A building has a climate, a crop has a water balance, and switchgear has a failure curve. All three leave a thermal signature before they leave a visible one.
Livestock
A herd does not have one temperature.
Weather-station THI gives you one number for the whole barn. Thermal gives you one per animal, and one per square metre of floor.
Heat stress, per animal
Forehead temperature tracks THI at r = 0.808 in dairy cattle. Rectal temperature manages only 0.557.
Surface temperature starts rising at THI 66.8–71.4. Core temperature waits until 74.1.
Peng et al. 2019, Int J Biometeorol 63:327–336. N = 488 Holstein cows.House climate uniformity
Inlet asymmetry, dead zones, exhaust-end build-up, brooder coverage. One thermal map shows what forty point sensors approximate.
Mature diagnostic practice rather than a single study. Extension programmes have used thermal house scans for insulation and inlet auditing for years.Cooling efficacy
In a 50,000-hen cage-free house, back-surface temperature dropped 6–6.7 °C immediately after sprinkler activation. It was still 5 °C cooler at three minutes.
University of Georgia field trial, 2 × FLIR T440.Lameness and digital dermatitis
Deep learning on thermal foot images reached over 81% accuracy on the day of first clinical signs. Two days earlier, over 70%.
Small study. One farm. 38 animals. Promising, not proven.
Feighelstein et al. 2024, Scientific Reports 14:29849.What we will not claim. Thermal is often sold for mastitis and oestrus detection. The published literature on both is split.
Two studies conclude infrared has low diagnostic ability, or fails at early detection. One sheep study found infected animals measurably cooler, not warmer.
We run both as research. We do not sell them. Why
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Proven Replicated peer-reviewed research, or mature practice in an adjacent industry. The source line says which.
Illustrative — not a measurement. Concept view of: Floor and air-inlet surface temperature along the inlet-to-exhaust axis Poultry house climate uniformity and ventilation audit
maximum internal temperature spread measured in a commercial house
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Proven Replicated peer-reviewed research, or mature practice in an adjacent industry. The source line says which.
Illustrative — not a measurement. Concept view of: Forehead and orbital surface temperature, after acclimatisation, out of direct sun Dairy heat-stress monitoring by surface temperature
forehead temperature against THI. Rectal temperature manages 0.557.
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Proven Replicated peer-reviewed research, or mature practice in an adjacent industry. The source line says which.
Illustrative — not a measurement. Concept view of: Comb and wattle surface temperature against the house baseline Poultry heat stress by comb and wattle temperature
ΔT under acute heat stress, η² ≥ 0.70 — the strongest of twelve regions measured
Crops & Greenhouse
A closed stoma is warmer than an open one.
Canopy temperature is a direct proxy for stomatal conductance. It tells you a plant has stopped transpiring before it tells your eyes anything.
Irrigation scheduling by canopy temperature
The crop water stress index is a formula, not a black box: CWSI = (T_canopy − T_wet) / (T_dry − T_wet).
In super-high-density olive, aerial CWSI separated full irrigation from deficit irrigation replacing 45% of crop evapotranspiration. Yield per unit leaf area was not significantly reduced.
In cotton, maximum water-use efficiency occurs at less water than maximum yield. That gap is the money.
Agricultural Water Management, olive and cotton trials.Greenhouse climate uniformity and envelope integrity
Torn cladding, failed seals, thermal bridging, uneven heat-pipe distribution. Invisible on a walk-through, obvious in one thermal pass.
We do not claim the camera saves energy. We claim it finds where the energy goes, and verifies a screen delivers what it was rated to deliver.
Condensation and Botrytis risk
A transpiring leaf sits 1–2 °C below air temperature at night. It can reach dew point and begin condensing while the climate computer’s air sensor still reads safe.
We produce a canopy-level condensation risk score. There is no published figure for how much disease this prevents, and we will not invent one.
Mechanism per AHDB and Penn State Extension guidance.Where this fails, stated plainly. A ±1 °C air-temperature error produces a 28–83% error in the calculated CWSI. That is the difference between a decision and a guess.
Canopy thermal is reliable near solar noon under clear sky. Cloud makes the index unstable, and wind biases it.
In one almond-orchard study, UAS-based CWSI could not separate control from deficit-irrigated trees. Stem-water-potential measurements separated them clearly. The instrument failed, not the biology.
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Proven Replicated peer-reviewed research, or mature practice in an adjacent industry. The source line says which.
Illustrative — not a measurement. Concept view of: Canopy temperature against a wet and a dry reference, in the correct measurement window Irrigation scheduling by canopy temperature (CWSI)
stem water potential predicted from thermal imaging plus machine learning
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Proven Replicated peer-reviewed research, or mature practice in an adjacent industry. The source line says which.
Illustrative — not a measurement. Concept view of: Envelope surface temperature, heat-pipe distribution and screen performance across the house Greenhouse envelope and heating uniformity survey
of greenhouse production cost is heating
Start with a measurement, not a subscription.
A fixed-fee assessment. One day on your site. A written report with the thermal evidence, the cost of what we found, and a verdict — deploy or stop.
Farm Infrastructure & Energy
A fault heats up long before it burns.
Loose connections, overloaded circuits and failing bearings dissipate energy as heat before they smoke. This is the oldest proven thermal application on a farm, and the least monitored.
Electrical panels and switchgear
Resistive heating at a loose or corroded connection is a textbook thermal signature. Fixed cameras with automatic alerting are already deployed in adjacent industries.
Requires the equipment under normal operating load. A cold panel shows nothing.
Motors, pumps and bearings
Friction from lubrication loss, misalignment or overload raises housing temperature before failure.
The value is not the single image. It is the trend — the bearing that has crept 2 °C per month across forty assets nobody inspects individually.
PV arrays and agrivoltaics
Cracked cells, delamination, string faults and reverse-bias hotspots against a uniform panel background. A mature inspection discipline, directly applicable to greenhouse roofs and pumping-station arrays.
Stored crop and feed surfaces
Microbial self-heating in stored grain, hay or silage. Honest limit: thermal sees surfaces.
In a controlled barley-silo trial, hotspots were detectable only within 0.3 m of the wall or grain surface. Detection failed entirely at wind speeds of 1.0 m/s and above.
Surface scanning supplements probe networks. It does not replace them.
ASABE stored-grain silo hotspot trial, elibrary.asabe.org abstract 22243.This one has a third-party payer. Of the three domains, infrastructure is the only one where somebody other than the farm may fund it. Insurers price barn fire risk.
Ontario data attributes about 40% of barn fires with a determined cause to electrical deterioration. If you are negotiating a policy, a continuous thermal record is an argument.
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Proven Replicated peer-reviewed research, or mature practice in an adjacent industry. The source line says which.
Illustrative — not a measurement. Concept view of: Surface temperature of connections, busbars and breakers under load Electrical panel and switchgear hotspot monitoring
of barn fires with a determined cause are attributed to electrical deterioration
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Proven Replicated peer-reviewed research, or mature practice in an adjacent industry. The source line says which.
Illustrative — not a measurement. Concept view of: Cell and string surface temperature against the uniform panel background PV array hotspot inspection for farm roofs and agrivoltaics
hotspot mapping accuracy, UAV thermal, validated against ground measurement