CAT S61 unveiled with better thermal camera and new tools

CAT unveiled its second-generation phone with a thermal camera – the CAT S61. Actually, the company refers to it as a “tool” rather than a phone and that should tell you something.

It features an upgraded FLIR thermal imaging camera with an expanded temperature range from -20°C to 400°C (-4°F—752°F) and higher resolution too – from VGA up to HD. The updated MyFlir app lets you livestream thermal video or get help from the community.

There’s more – the phone now features a laser-assisted distance measurement tool. You can measure point-to-point distance up to 10m (33ft) and calculate area. This tool actually saves all the data, so you can do additional measurements even after you leave the site.

Then there’s the indoor air quality sensor (from Sensirion), which tracks Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), including paints, solvents, cleaning products and more. The CAT S61 will alert you when it detects an unhealthy environment.

The phone itself is built to go into your toolbox. It has a reinforced die-cast aluminum frame and lives up to both MIL-STD-810G and IP68 standards. It can survive 3m of water for an hour or drops onto concrete from 1.8m. It can weather extreme temperatures – from -30°C to 65°C – for a day and it’s resistant to humidity and salt mist.

The CAT S61 features a better thermal camera and a laser-assisted distance measurement tool

The screen – guarded by Gorilla Glass 5, of course – is 5.2” big and has 1080p resolution. It’s bright (optimized for outdoor use) and you can use it with gloves or wet fingers. For regular photos, there’s a 16MP camera on the back (4K video) and an 8MP selfie camera.

The CAT S61 runs surprisingly fresh software, Android Oreo, and CAT promises an upgrade to Android P. It’s powered by a Snapdragon 630 processor with 4GB of RAM and 64GB built-in storage (expandable via microSD). The phone sports a 4,500mAh battery and supports QuickCharge 4.0 (over USB-C).

CAT will be showing off the S61 at the MWC and will start selling it globally in Q2 through select retailers and carriers. The price is €900;/£800 (that’s $985), a bit salty but not too bad if you get it as a work phone.

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