Cell phone killers...the new Caterpillar S60

UNBREAKABLE

UNBREAKABLE

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 19, 2005
Location
Granite Falls
I'm a destroyer. I've demolished every phone I've ever had. Some of them, I've smashed, fixed, smashed. My latest annihilation was/is a Nexus 6. I got a fancy case, meh...I can break it. The phone is fantastic but the glass sucks. I cracked the glass...no big deal, its still operational. Few days later it slid out of my pocket while I was working on a receptacle and the LCD was toast. $220 and 2 days I had the phone back together. A few days after that, I'm on my scissor lift, raise up and smash the phone into building steel.(insert expletives here). $220 and 2 days...back at it. One week later, my 2 year old knocks it off the couch and cracks the glass. I'm not putting any more $ into this phone.

Which brings me to this...the new Caterpillar S60. The first phone with built in FLIR technology. Not a bad tool to have handy for people in some trades. I'm an electrician and this is nice for me to be able to find hot spots in panels, warm receptacles, hot wires in conduit, etc. Its also mil-spec for drops and waterproof. For the price, its on point @$600. I'm just waiting for the release.

Instant Analysis: Caterpillar Releases World's First Smartphone With Thermal Imaging -- The Motley Fool

Cat® S60 Smartphone
s60-front.png
 
My buddy has the Flir Lepton piggyback for his iPhone. It seems to be almost as good as the higher end Flir stuff I've used, but with lower accuracy and a fairly low max temperature. Thats probably the same Lepton core as in the Cat phone. Pretty cool..

Don't use it to image the inside of your house in the winter to see thermal loss. I did that last winter with a high end industrial Flir just for giggles. It was depressing and I stopped after one room. I'd rather not know.
 
It's Cat branded. That means it will be structurally solid. The electronics will be outdated and flaky. It will be bigger than it needs to be and will cost double what it should.
 
Yeah, the Lepton piggyback is $375 for the iPhone, so figure maybe $300 for the Flir parts of the Cat phone. That doesn't leave a lot of meat left for decent phone hardware, so the entire rest of the phone including waterproof case, etc., is only $300, and it's not going to be a high volume phone compared to anything else on the mobile market.
Basically you're not going to be getting Nexus-level hardware with Flir functionality for $600.
 
I had issues with breaking phones like crazy, solved the problem with a Otter box armor series case, indestructible as hell, I would throw my phone at a brick wall just to freak people out, you can run it over with your truck and not hurt it a bit, forget it in your pocket and walk into the ocean and it's not gonna touch it. The only way I think I could break my phone would be to hit it on the screen with a hard corner or point.
 
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