An Indian engineer, Abhijit Mukherjee, has come up with an ESP8266-based solution for safe measurements of body temperature during the COVID-19 crisis. Abhijit says he “felt the urge to do something which could help” during the current global pandemic. By posting his project on hackster.io, he also wants to invite suggestions from other makers on how to improve his solution.

Baffled by the lack of reasonably-priced contactless thermometers on the market, and prompted by the necessity to safely check from a distance the temperature of people he had to deal with in his personal and professional, daily life, Abhijit turned to the power of ESP8266. So, he built a completely autonomous and contactless, IR temperature-measuring device which can be mounted anywhere, e.g. an office door, an apartment entrance, or the on front gate of a block of flats. Abhijit’s gadget can track people’s temperature and post the results to any cloud or incoming webhooks (a simple way to post messages from apps into the Slack messaging app). The cost of this solution ranges between 10 and 12 USD only!

Key Components

• Mlx90614 Contactless Infrared Temperature Sensor Module, 3-5V, for Arduino
• Nodemcu ESP8266 Wi-Fi IoT Development Board as a Microcontroller.
• LCD 16x2 Alphanumeric Display
• Slack messaging app

Circuit Diagram

For optimal temperature measurements with the sensor currently used for this project, a distance of 3 cm to a forehead or a hand is necessary. When a temperature measurement is completed, it is eventually sent to the operator’s display. Additionally, the Slack messaging app provides an API for sending alerts or notifications under certain conditions. So, whenever a body temperature above 37 degrees Celsius is detected, the system operator is duly notified, so that the necessary precautions are taken promptly. 

You can get all the details about Abhijit Mukherjee’s ESP8266-based, contactless, IR thermometer by clicking here.