Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First off, this was out of stock when I ordered it. Amazon gave me an estimated delivery date when I ordered it and then they were able to improve upon that date by quite a bit. So, kudo's to Amazon for getting this to me as soon as they could. Even before ordering the C5, I had already watched quite a few promotional and vendor review videos about the unit. Once I did place the order, I watched everything else I could find on the C5 and started to download and read the owner's manual. I also did as much homework as I could on Flir Tools and Flir Ignite. I wanted to be as knowledgeable as I could be, so that the moment this arrived in the mail I'd already have a good understanding of how to use it and some of the best practices. I'm brand new to thermal imaging and I understand that even years from now there will still be a lot for me to learn and understand. With that said, I think I was more prepared as a first time user than most would be. So, while some of my initial disappointments with the C5 and the FLIR software in general may end up being partially due to my inexperience, I am confident that I myself am not solely the issue. My very first thermal image is attached. I have not used my 48-volt golf cart in a few years and when trying to get it back into service, I was unable to get two of the six batteries above their normal 8+ volt levels. I was hoping that with a few cycles of discharging and recharging the batteries that I could somehow coax them back to life, but that has not been the case. As you'll see in the image of the batteries, the C5 quickly identified the exact two batteries that cannot achieve 8+ volts. Not only that, but it also clearly shows which of the four 2-volt cells in each battery that are the apparent problem. You can imagine I was quite impressed right out of the gate having the C5 not only confirm, but further diagnose my battery issues. Now for some of the disappointing issues I've experienced. The Flir Tools software opens up and appears to operate properly on my Windows 10 machine, but it will not recognize the C5. I downloaded the latest version of FLIR Tools directly from FLIR's website. When I used their 'Check for updates' feature under the FLIR Tools Help menu, it states my Version 5.13.18031.2002 is the latest version. So, while I've played around a bit in FLIR Tools using their included example images, I've not been able to really run it through its paces. I did play around with their Report feature. So far, the Report feature seems a little clunky. You don't seem to have a lot of control over the Header and Footer objects, but at least they do allow you to customize those a little bit. It would just be nice if you had some additional formatting abilities, but I suspect you may have to upgrade to the paid version of FLIR Tools + to get those. While you can change the Logo that is shown in the upper left-hand corner of the report, I can't seem to get FLIR Tools to keep my Logo as the preferred. Each time I open up FLIR Tools it resets itself to their default FLIR logo and I have to manually browse to re-select my own logo that I want used. There is a 30-day free trial of FLIR Tools +, but I'm not going to try that out yet. I'll wait until I determine whether or not I'm going to return this camera and until I get some other things figured out. That way, I'll be able to take full advantage of the free trial should I choose to check it out without simultaneously wasting time working my way through my other frustrations and disappointments. Just as I can't get FLIR Tools to detect and connect with my C5, I can't get the FLIR Ignite cloud service to sync up with it either. After I get everything set up and then try to upload from the C5 to the cloud via Wi-Fi, all I get is the error message you see in one of the attached photos which states 'Paused - No server'. I've successfully paired my C5 with Ignite exactly how the directions explain it be done, but it never works. The C5 has twice seemed to lose the 'Pairing' connection I've made with Ignite somehow and twice given me a new code to pair with Ignite again. None of the three pairing procedures my C5 has forced me to perform have resulted in me being able to upload images to the cloud. Some other disappointments: There does not appear to be anyway to plug the C5 to charge via the USB cable without it automatically turning itself on. I realize I can manually turn it off once it turns itself on, but I'd prefer it just automatically go into charge mode and keep the thermal imager turned off. You have to create accounts on FLIR's website for everything. It would be nice if I could have just one account with FLIR, meaning one username and password that works for my product registration, FLIR Tools, FLIR Ignite, etc. but all of those things require separate logins. This is totally ridiculous. I first created my main FLIR log in, but then when I went to register my C5 it says hold on, you can't register that type of device here and then redirects me to another part of their website to create another username and password. Then once you have successfully registered your device, it will show up as one of your devices under your main account at FLIR. But, once you then set up FLIR Tools, it will not accept either of those first two usernames and passwords you created, it will force you to create a third username and password just for FLIR Tools. Then, once you set up FLIR Ignite, you guessed it, it will not accept any of your first three usernames and passwords, you have to create a fourth username and password just for Ignite. Finally, my unit has freaked out on my quite a few times in just the 36 hours I've owned it. It has once totally frozen the camera, so you can't access any of the controls. None of the normal information that would be visible on the screen, such as the temperature range, spot temperature, etc. were visible. The power button wouldn't work to turn the camera off, so I could reboot it. The shutter button wouldn't take a photo. See attached photo with the large round circle in it for what the screen looked like when it froze, no visible information, just the thermal image. Unfortunately I was up in the attic when this happened. I had to come back down where it was a bit cooler to try and get the unit to function again. I tried plugging it in to the USB cable to see if that would wake it up, but that did not help. I ended up having to just press and hold down the power button for quite a while and then it finally rebooted. Freezing was not the only issue I had while up in the attic. As I would pan around the attic looking for anomalies and just trying out the camera in general, the camera would often try to recalibrate itself. It would kind of freeze the image on the screen for a few second and the word 'Calibrating' or something like that would appear at the top of the screen. I assume this is due to a drastic enough temperature range difference the C5 noticed from where I was looking to where I moved it to, but it was a very clunky process. I wasn't even moving quickly, I was panning around fairly slowly, but it just kept trying to re-calibrate itself. More than once, it stopped taking new thermal temperature readings regardless of where I was pointing it to. Parts of the screen would update with the new image (I think the digital camera sketch part), but the thermal overlay part would stay stuck on a previous image, so the two weren't synced up at all and no new temperature readings would be displayed. Lastly, as far as the digital camera sketch and the thermal image being aligned with one another, see the attached picture of a tiny frog that was near my garage door this morning. You can clearly see the 'sketch' outline of the frog is shown above the pinkish thermal image of the frog itself. So, while I'm not giving up on this unit just yet, I'm definitely disappointed in the C5 and FLIR's website and software so far. I'll try to overcome as many of these issues in the coming days as I can, but if my experience doesn't drastically improve, whether caused by user error or otherwise, this will be going back to Amazon.