At home, can you use a thermometer that touches the forehead?

Thermoworks makes great products, their Thermopen is often rated #1 for instant meat thermometers.

They now sell a contactless wand thermometer for people. I don't use one myself.

https://www.thermoworks.com/wand

I bought the Thermoworks Wand. It seems to work fine. We haven’t been ill since it arrived a couple of months ago. You hold it 1 inch from the forehead and press the button. After 1 second, it beeps letting you know it has registered the temperature of the object. I can’t hear the beep.

I have a Vive brand I bought on Amazon.

Ded- I did exact same thing.

I wouldn't laugh, I may give that a try. Thermopens are great. At one time I drove around with 2 of them sticking out of the dash vents on my car because my AC was acting up. You should have seen the look on the service technician's face when I tried to explain why I had meat thermometers in the vents.

Since I like the thermopen so much I just bought their thermometer. It is/was on sale, but still expensive. I trust it to be accurate vs the ones I've encountered in the wild.

I just received one as a gift. The notoriously thrifty gifter ordered 3, which took weeks to arrive (which she complained about as if I demanded she order one for me. 🤷🏼‍♀️) She said “there are more expensive ones, maybe they’re more accurate, but I wasn’t paying that much.” Umm, thank you?, for an admittedly cheap, possible inaccurate thermometer. How very thoughtful.

In case anyone is interested - the Thermowand is 29% off. I don't use these but I can vouch for their ThermoPen for baking and cooking. A few posters mentioned it upthread.

https://www.thermoworks.com/wand?trk_msg=ST666KNCU17KND5P5JSVNGRSSG&trk_contact=NMIR42N5JUQQ4PVFV4FCUP2LI0&trk_sid=RKF32MDBHFHALRD24HF5GNKEKC&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=WAND-CTA&utm_campaign=Aug2020-WAND-price-drop-cs

Well, if the Thermopen is accurate for a forehead thermometer, I’m a goner. Mine only registers 89! However, I have used it for room temperature. Proved to our builder that the upstairs bedroom needed more insulation!

I bought the Thermapen when I realized all the thermometers I had while the boys were growing up were lost or no longer working. I found one old mercury type that didn't work -- a little scary. I did later find one that I was able to get a new battery for, but had already bought a Thermapen Wand for each of our sons and one for us. I have since bought one for my son to have at school. I would have loved to have these when the boys were growing up -- they may become a new baby gift. Bbstx -- go for it! Especially on sale. The leather pouch is nice too.

Thanks everyone for all the replies. I have decided to not get one after all after hearing doctors say rhey are not reliable.

I have a Thermoworks Wand. It works fine.

Since I can break any piece of hardware or software made (I'm just wired that way.) I exercised all of the error codes before getting it to work consistently. It's easy to turn off the beep accidently, so I did that, too, at first.

If I had a fever, I'm sure I'd verify it with my oral thermometer, because I'm a "belt and suspenders" sort of person.

Moxie, I just realized a few days ago that I had somehow turned off the beep. Thought I was getting hard of hearing!

Lyban, a number of doctor's offices and professionals are using the Thermapen Wand. Mine is extremely consistent, and that is even more important than whether it is calibrated a tenth or a half a degree off because our basal body temperatures can vary a bit. What you want is something to record your normal temperature a number of times and then be able to detect when it changes by a degree or more.