Thermal cameras are definitely a nifty gadget to have around. Whether you’re doing automotive or electrical power repairs and need to identify hot components, looking for creatures in the dark, improving the energy efficiency of your home by looking for thermal losses or diagnosing faulty printed circuit board assemblies, having a thermal camera can help immensely, both by saving time and by avoiding burnt fingers.

While I’ve reviewed a number of different standalone and USB-C connected thermal cameras so far, perhaps my favourite for a while has been the Topdon TS001 due to its manual focus lens that ensures you can get a crisp thermal image regardless of the distance to the subject, and it also can get up quite close to small components on circuit boards too. The main downside was the lens being 9mm focal length meant that everything was comparatively zoomed in (a smaller field of view) so it was less suitable for wide-area tasks.

I was recently contacted by Thermal Master, the company behind the previously-reviewed P2, to review their latest successor to the P2, the P3 “PCB Master” thermal camera. This particular camera is of interest as it is a manual focus camera with a focus on use on PCBs. It has the regular 256 x 192 resolution sensor, but claims to reach 512 x 384 through X³ image enhancement techniques (Razor X) while also offering 15x digital zoom. It is also the first USB-C thermal camera I’ve reviewed that advertises itself to be triple-platform compatible – Android (7.0 and later), iOS (USB-C and Lightning, iPhone 8-16) and Windows.

Let’s see how it compares to my much-used Topdon TS001 and whether it will become my new favourite smartphone thermal camera. As I only run Android and Windows, I won’t be testing iOS compatibility.

Unboxing

A tightly packed cardboard box arrived on my doorstep, containing the thermal camera underneath a layer of bubble wrap.

The camera arrives in a matte finish high-quality cardboard gift box with metallic accents. The camera is shown in front of and attached to a smartphone, on a black field. Key features indicated include all-OS support (PC, iOS, Android), the ability to resolve 0.25mm resistors, focusing between 8mm to 80m and a 600 degrees Celsius high-temperature range.

The box is sealed with round sticky clear plastic tape. The rear of the box has key information about the product, serial number and its manufacturer, indicating the device is made in China. There are QR codes for support. The P3 has a barcode number 6977658980241.

One of the sides of the box has the Thermal Master logo, with the other focusing on Temp Master, the app which supports this camera.

The final side of the box indicates key features through a mixture of icons and captions including the iOS/Android compatibility, 8mm macro distance, 8mm-80m focus distance, 512 x 384 super-resolution (although native resolution is actually 256 x 192) and 600 degrees Celsius high temperature range.

The black colour theme continues on inside the box, where a thin cardboard packet of documentation covers the rest of the contents.

Lifting this out of the way, there is a semi-rigid nylon carry case containing the camera underneath.

Altogether, we have the transport case with the thermal camera and USB-C to Lightning adapter for older iOS devices, a USB-C to USB-C extension cable with a captive USB-C to USB-A adapter for using the camera at a distance (e.g. when with a computer), a multilingual quick-start guide book (it’s quite thick) and a warranty extension card.

The thermal camera itself has a black and bronze colour scheme including an accent stripe around the whole camera with the brand logo inset on the front side and bronze rings around the lens. Featuring a metallic body, it is both fashionable and durable. The design is surprisingly compact.

The rounded edges add some softness to the design, while the lens focusing ring is knurled for good grip and turns smoothly with a nice damped movement.

The camera is branded on the rear.

The approvals are located on a label on the underside. The USB-C connector is extended and relatively straight, allowing for connection to phones without needing to remove most cases.

When using with older Apple iOS devices with a Lightning connector, the included adapter is required and converts the USB-C connection to a Lightning plug.

This makes the thermal camera a bit unwieldy as it extends out from the body a fair distance (almost