okay so background: i do a mix of infrastructure inspection and some search and rescue volunteer work, mostly flying a Matrice 300 which has been absolutely solid for that stuff. right now im using the H20 (non-T) and for most inspection work its fine but weve had a couple SAR callouts where thermal would have been genuinely useful and i keep borrowing a buddies setup which is annoying.

the H20T is obviously the cleaner solution since its all integrated and the sensor fusion between the thermal and zoom is actually really useful in practice, ive used it a few times. but the price is brutal. ive also seen people cobbling together third party FLIR cameras on a separate gimbal on the aux port and getting decent results, supposedly. the integration is obviously worse but if the actual thermal image quality is comparable or better it might be worth it depending on how the numbers work out.

anyone gone deep on this comparison or have real world experience with both? mainly care about detection range and image quality in low-contrast environments like treelines at night, not really worried about radiometric precision for this use case

the sensor fusion alone on the H20T is honestly worth a lot in SAR context. being able to overlay the thermal on the zoom feed and have them track together in real time is genuinely useful when youre trying to communicate a position to ground teams. ive watched operators struggle with running separate screens for a standalone FLIR and the cognitive load adds up when you're already managing airspace and comms. that said if your budget is what it is, a FLIR Vue Pro R on a decent lightweight gimbal gets you good thermal performance and the radiometric data is a bonus even if you said you dont need it - resale value is better too. the intergration with the M300 wont be as seamless but its not unworkable.

i'd push back a little on the idea that the H20T thermal is exceptional for detection range specifically. the Lepton-based sensors in some of the smaller standalone FLIRs actually have better thermal sensitivity in certain conditions, the H20T trades some of that for the convenience. for treeline SAR at night you really want high NETD performance and i'd actually look at what sensor is inside whatever you're comparing before assuming DJI integrated = better image. that said the zoom slaving thing is genuinely hard to replicate with a cobbled rig