Thermal imaging vs motion sensors – what's actually useful?

I've been reading a lot of nonsense on paranormal forums about thermal imaging being essential kit for ghost hunting. Spent £400 on a CAT thermal camera last year and honestly? I've used it exactly twice. Meanwhile my motion sensors - cheap ones, about £25 each from Screwfix - have actually triggered on something unexplainable at least a couple of times.

Before I waste more money on kit that doesn't actually help, I thought I'd ask the group: what equipment do you lot genuinely use and find helpful? Not stuff you bought because some YouTuber said it was essential. Actual stuff that's been useful in the field.

My setup at the moment: Basic motion sensors, thermal tablet (iPad running some thermal app - honestly the CAT camera was a waste), audio recorder, digital thermometer, and honestly that's it. Plus notebook and pen because you always forget the important stuff if you don't write it down immediately.

Thermal imaging is brilliant but you need to understand what you're looking at first. Most hauntings don't register thermally because they're not physical enough - you're looking for temperature anomalies but genuinely anomalous thermal signatures are rare and hard to distinguish from environmental factors. Rubbish kit, though. The cheap thermal apps are basically useless.

Motion sensors are hit-and-miss but at least they're cheap enough to deploy a whole network of them. I've set up grids at three locations and got some genuinely interesting data - activity patterns that cluster around specific areas and specific times. That's the kind of intel you can actually follow up on. Thermal's nice for a one-off but doesn't give you pattern data.

Honestly, the most useful kit I've bought is a decent DSLR camera. Full-spectrum modified one set me back about £150 second-hand and it's picked up stuff my thermal stuff never will. Combined with audio, you get a much rounder picture of what's happening. But the real secret is location knowledge and prep work. Kit's just the tool - the investigation's in the research.

I've used it exactly twice

That's the problem with thermal imaging for most people - proper investigation requires understanding thermal physics first. Temperature differentials, emissivity, environmental factors, all that. Buy it without training and you'll just get confused readings. Worth taking a course if you're serious about it, but yeah, for casual ghost hunting it's not worth the expense.

What actually works? Patience. Silence. Good observational skills. I've solved more "hauntings" by sitting quietly in a room for two hours and actually noticing the physical world - pipes expanding, neighbours' noise carrying weirdly, a window in the next room being open - than I've solved with any fancy equipment. The ghost hunting sites sell you gear because gear is profitable. They don't sell you "sit still and pay attention" because you can't monetize that.

Fair push-back on thermal but disagree on the motion sensors. Too many false positives from wind, animals, people in adjacent rooms. I went back to basics: EMF metre, audio recorder, thermometer, notebook. Picked up on those at the local historical society and they've been infinitely more useful than all the gadgets. Simple works.