Seek Reveal XR Hand-Held Thermal Imager by Graham Allen

Thermal imaging technology has traditionally been very expensive and until recently very bulky as well. The new Seek Reveal XR however is around five-inches long and fits in the palm of your hand, it isn’t much bigger than a TV remote control, and looks rather like a fat smart phone with a screen on the top. The Reveal weighs 6¾-ounces and slips into a pocket and you don’t know you’re carrying it. There are three rubber buttons that control the various functions and it’s a fairly intuitive item to use. The front has the thermal sensor with a 20° field of view and an LED torch next to it but more of the latter later. The detection range is up to 900- feet or 275-meters (around 100-meters is optimal though), so is ideal for rat shooting around farm buildings, rabbit control and even centrefire foxing. The colour palette can be altered via the menu and you can scroll though the seven options until you get the image you’re after, I chose the ‘yellow on black’ variety, as it seemed (to my eyes at least) to be the best of those available.

The central button turns the unit on and as you scan around, the image is displayed on the screen. I initially used the unit indoors to familiarise myself with it and it’s very interesting to see just how much heat is given off various household appliances etc. and even the warmth coming from switches etc. My daughter was amazed by how the image changed as the kettle heated up for instance!

An internal battery supplies the power and is said to be good for up to 10-hours use; a removable Micro SD card takes care of image storage and it’s possible to save the data to a computer if required. You can either remove the card or use the supplied micro USB cable, which is also used to charge the battery. The 300-Lumen LED torch that I mentioned earlier is turned on by pressing a switch on the right of the unit and it has two power levels, ‘Low’ and ‘High’ and they can be set be as powerful as you like via the menu. The unit I had on test was set to 15% and 100% and was ideal for most tasks. The high setting is bright enough to shoot out to 100-yards or so, and having the light built in makes for a very useful item. I can see it being used by all sorts of people, hunters, security guards, police and emergency personnel.

Field test

I first used the Seek outside at Pete’s Airgun Farm in Essex, and anyone who knows the area will appreciate just how dark it gets over there. It’s very remote and there’s very little light pollution and when the sun goes down it can get very dark indeed. On the night in question it was pitch black, so ideal to test the unit. I could detect rabbits easily at around 80-yards and it was interesting watching them hop about as they fed, completely oblivious to my presence. I later used it at the farm I shoot on and I was hoping to be able to see foxes, but as luck would have it there weren’t any around. I could however detect lambs well over 100-yards away, so foxes would have been picked up easily. All in all a very clever little unit, with a host of uses. I can see it being very popular with all kinds of users.