Thermal cameras can cost well into the five-figure range if you’re buying high-resolution models with good feature sets. New models can be so advanced that their export and use is heavily controlled by certain countries, including the USA. If you just want to tinker at the low end, though, you don’t have to spend a lot of scratch. You can even build yourself something simple based on an Arduino Uno!
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://hackaday.com/2023/12/22/ultra-basic-thermal-camera-built-using-arduino-uno/