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
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 US$ 985), a
bit salty but not too bad if you get it as a work phone.
