Infrared Thermography is an exciting technology with lots of applications ranging from predictive maintenance, defense, medical and now to find out my iphone's body heat signature
When iphone 3GS was launched, there were few reports of iphone getting overheated. Whether the reports were true or not, apple released an advisory on keeping the iphone within operating temperatures. You can read that here - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2101. Even there is a temperature warning screen built in.
So I picked up my thermal camera and prepared to do a test with my iphone 3GS which includes taking a image after a period of charging and another image after using the phone intensively for some time by playing games and watching videos. The tests are to find out the hotspots and maximum temperature that the phone is reaching after a period of normal usage.
The thermal images below shows the hotspots of iphone 3GS taken after ten minutes of usage. To put the thermal images in context, I had attached a terrible paint brushed image below. I am pretty sure that the big red spot is because of battery but not sure about the spot at bottom right corner, when you face the back of iphone towards you. I had searched ifixit 3GS tear down but couldn't figure out what causes it to overheat at that particular spot. But there is nothing to worry about as it is within the operating temperature but I am just curious to know.
If you are aware, please comment..
But I never felt that my iphone is overheating.. Do you??
the big hot spot is the battery, the little one is the processor.
Posted by: rinzewind | September 15, 2010 at 12:45 PM