Comparison

Flir One vs RIDGID Thermal

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Flir One

This app transforms your smartphone into a thermal imaging device when connected to a compatible camera. It helps identify hidden issues like water damage, electrical faults, and HVAC problems with advanced visual enhancements and measurement tools. Document and share your findings easily.

Highlights
  • Thermal camera view
  • Capture photos and videos
  • Temperature spot measurements
  • Color palette selection
  • Add text notes
  • Cloud upload and organization
  • Inspection guides
Features
Read full description

Connect your FLIR ONE® series Thermal Camera for efficient troubleshooting and inspection. Note: This app requires the FLIR ONE series Thermal Camera connected to your smartphone in order to see the thermal camera view, but feel free to explore the app without the device attached. For more information, visit www.flir.com/flirone. Whether you need to inspect electrical panels, find the source of HVAC failures, or discover hidden water damage, the FLIR ONE series offers the features you need to find problems faster and get more work done in less time. With advanced image enhancement features such as FLIR MSX® and FLIR VividIR™, the FLIR ONE series provides best-in-class thermal imagery for smartphones that ensures you can detect problems with precision. The revolutionary rugged and ergonomic camera design combined with the wireless connection of the FLIR ONE Edge series ensures that you can perform efficient troubleshooting with the camera attached to the phone, and have the increased flexibility of detaching the camera to easily inspect targets out of reach, while comfortably viewing your screen. Key FLIR ONE App features: • Scan for faults with the thermal camera view and capture photos and videos to your gallery • Troubleshoot efficiently with automatic tracking of the hottest and coldest spot (Edge Series and Pro Series only) • Choose between a variety of color palettes for best visualization • Analyze faults with temperature spot measurements • Adjust the IR scale to highlight the problem (Edge and Pro Series only) • Switch between Quality Mode for best possible image quality, or Performance Mode for a more responsive camera experience • Add text notes to photos to document your findings • Connecting to FLIR Ignite™ allows you to instantly upload your files to the cloud, so you can access them from any device, organize files into folders, edit images, create reports and share findings with co-workers and clients • FLIR ONE Inspection Guides (paid feature) empowers you to identify issues with confidence, through step-by-step guides packed with helpful tips on how to identify moisture, insulation and air leak issues • Explore the eco-system of a wide range of FLIR ONE compatible apps tailored for specific use cases For additional application ideas and news, or to share your day-to-day discoveries, follow FLIR on social media channels at facebook.com/flir, instagram.com/flir, x.com/flir, and youtube.com/flir. Terms of use: https://www.flir.com/corporate/terms-of-use/

About

RIDGID Thermal

Connect to Wi-Fi enabled thermal imagers to transfer, analyze, and organize thermal images on your smartphone or tablet. Easily add measurements, annotations, and adjust color palettes before saving and sharing your findings.

Highlights
  • Wi-Fi image transfer
  • Thermal image analysis
  • Spot measurements
  • Image annotations
  • Temperature display
  • Color palette adjustment
  • Image sharing
Features
Read full description

RIDGID Thermal works exclusively with RT-5x, RT-7x and RT-9x Wi-Fi enabled thermal imagers from RIDGID. The app allows seamless transfer of thermal images from the imager to your smartphone or tablet for analysis, organization and sharing. Create multiple spot measurements within an image, easily make annotations, and show the max and min temperatures within an area. It’s easy to navigate between the visual image and the thermal image and well adjust the thermal color palette displayed. Save images and analysis to your photo library and quickly share with others.

Screenshots

Flir One4 screens
RIDGID Thermal4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Flir One at 4.6 against RIDGID Thermal's 1.8. Flir One also leads on update cadence (every 5 weeks vs every 9 months) and ratings volume (7.6K vs 128). RIDGID Thermal's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On price, review sentiment, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Flir One sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $29.99 per year. RIDGID Thermal asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Flir One holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 1.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Flir One has 7.6K ratings behind it against 128, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 22% of Flir One's written reviews are positive against 26% of RIDGID Thermal's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Flir One ships an update every 5 weeks, RIDGID Thermal every 9 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Flir One versus RIDGID Thermal: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFlir OneRIDGID Thermal
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (7.6K ratings) — better1.8 (128 ratings)
Positive reviews21.6% of reviews26.5% of reviews — better
Number of ratings7.6K — better128
Update frequencyEvery 5 weeks — betterEvery 9 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS18.017.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size178 MB29 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperFLIR Systems AktiebolagRIDGID Software Solutions

Customer experience

Flir One

All ratings7,615 ratings
Positive90.3%
Neutral3.0%
Negative6.7%
Written reviews375 reviews
Positive21.6%
Neutral6.9%
Negative71.5%

RIDGID Thermal

All ratings128 ratings
Positive18.8%
Neutral4.7%
Negative76.6%
Written reviews34 reviews
Positive26.5%
Neutral2.9%
Negative70.6%

User reviews

Flir One

From 7.6K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Great for finding animals
  • 🚀 Excellent affordable option for home inspection
  • 🚀 Valued piece of tech for animal rescue
  • 🚀 Excellent piece of equipment
  • 🚀 Simple but informative

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Image alignment issues
  • 🐛 Scam - won't connect
  • 🐛 Poor App/Image refresh
  • 🐛 Waste of money
  • 🐛 Poor UX, only real option

RIDGID Thermal

From 128 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Works as intended (with hardware)
  • 💡 Explains hardware requirement

Room to improve

  • 👎 Requires external thermal camera
  • 👎 App doesn't take photos
  • 👎 App doesn't detect heat
  • 👎 App is a scam
  • 👎 App is useless without hardware

Bugs and requests

Flir One

Reported bugs

7 issues
  • Constantly disconnecting
  • App crashes
  • Doesn't work with older devices after updates
  • Slow refresh rate and high latency
  • App requires full photo library access
Show 2 more
  • Freezes and paralyzes phone
  • Crashes on startup

Requested features

6 requests
  • Bring back swiping between thermal and regular images
  • Allow locking temperature scale
  • Add temperature range display
  • Allow setting own emissivity value
  • Allow selecting colors on manual temperature scale
Show 1 more
  • Improve camera alignment adjustability

RIDGID Thermal

Reported bugs

8 issues
  • App connects to network without permission
  • App requests location access
  • App doesn't take photos
  • App doesn't detect heat
  • App shows pre-taken photos
Show 3 more
  • App black screen on launch
  • App can't import photos
  • App can't connect camera to wifi

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Flir One

Subscriptions1
  • Inspection Guides1 Year trial$29.991 Year
None

RIDGID Thermal

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Flir One free?
Flir One is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is RIDGID Thermal free?
RIDGID Thermal is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Flir One or RIDGID Thermal?
Flir One is rated higher. Flir One averages 4.6 out of 5 from 7.6K ratings, while RIDGID Thermal averages 1.8 from 128 ratings.
Do Flir One or RIDGID Thermal have ads?
Neither Flir One nor RIDGID Thermal shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Flir One or RIDGID Thermal?
Flir One ships an update every 5 weeks, and RIDGID Thermal every 9 months. Most recently, Flir One was updated on November 6, 2026 and RIDGID Thermal on November 3, 2026.

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