Spy camera comes to phones with the OnePlus8: its camera sees through plastic and clothes

May 15, 2020 by Dunja Djudjic 31 Comments

OnePlus-s latest flagship phone, OnePlus 8 Pro, was announced only a month ago, promising pretty stunning camera performance. But it seems to be even cooler than we thought. While there weren’t too many details about the phone’s “color filter camera,” it turns out that it has a sort of X-ray vision. It can see through some plastic objects, and even through clothes!

The OnePlus 8 Pro packs four cameras, two of which are 48-megapixels. The one we’re concerned with is the “color filter camera,” a 5-megapixel camera that can be used for applying all sorts of unique filters to your photos. However, when you use the Photochrom mode, you use this camera’s filter for infrared photography. And this is when it becomes interesting.

People began to notice that you can use OnePlus 8 Pro’s Photocrom mode to see through some objects. More precisely, it sees through thin plastic of remote controls, Apple TV, game controllers and so on. Check it out in this video from Alan Goodwin:

It appears that the thickness of plastic depends whether the camera will be able to see through it or not. It can easily reveal what’s behind a thin layer of plastic, but it doesn’t show you what’s hidden behind a thicker one. And now we get to the creepy territory – can it see through clothes? Judging from this test by
Unbox Therapy: yes, it can.

The OnePlus 8 Pro can see through some fabrics like thin black clothes. My DIYP buddy Paul Monaghan reminded me that Sony used to sell camcorders that did the same thing, and I have a dim memory about it too. Sony had a “Night Vision” mode on one of their handycams, and Lewis of Unbox Therapy mentions it in the video above as well. In later versions of the camcorder, Sony removed the feature because it caused a lot of controversy.

The question now remains: what will OnePlus do? The “color filter camera” sure has some cool applications and it makes the OnePlus 8 Pro stand out from the competitors. On the other hand, you can only imagine how the feature can be misused. I read in a few places that this feature can be difficult to alter through software update. Therefore, if OnePlus decides to address the issue, they might need to give up the color filter camera completely. Now we can just wait and see how the story unfolds and how OnePlus will deal with the potential problems or misuse this camera can cause.

[via XDA Developers]

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Theodoros Kondakos

At last
viking71442

Don’t they still sell XRay googles in the back of comic books?
Andre Goble

Appears to lack an IR-cut filter. Presumably more for miniaturisation, than spying.
Amelia Rebecca Smits-Ayerman

Men will use it to be perverts if what they mean when it says it can see through close is what I think they mean when they say it can see through clothes. Thats invasive.
- TheGreatestMeow
  
  Because women can’t be perverts, right.
  - A. Davis
    
    Women can be perverts, but it’s still frowned upon by society so we usually keep it behind closed doors without being invasive and disrespectful towards other people out in public. Huge difference. Pretty sure this could be classified as as “revenge porn” or somewhere along the legal lines. Hopefully none of you applauding this have daughters or ever plan on having children.
  - I like turtles
    
    Let’s be real here and use facts. Men, typically, are aroused by visual stimuli more than women. Think about how many strip clubs you see for men verses women. There is plenty of data to support this. Look up the stats for convicted men vs women for sexual crimes and misconduct, again men outweigh women. It’s not that women can’t be perverts or sexual predators, but STATISTICALLY, men engage in sexual crimes against women far more than the other way around. 1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted vs 1 in 75 men in their lifetime. Look it up.
    - Ticking Bomb
      
      Are you both man and woman to know this as fact? I personally think you are dead wrong.
    - Ticking Bomb
      
      Left a message for you at the top bcoz for some reason (perhaps the site has a bug) I could not paste it on this thread. The message was with all due respect. All I ask kindly is not to continue vilifying and criminalizing us men. We get enough of that by mean man-hating feminists every day. Al they’re doing is to continue stretching the gap of respect between the two genders. So think about it, friend.
    - TheGreatestMeow
      
      And making assumption about people and being biased will fix all that right?
- Chris Radenovic
  
  Sucks being a social justice warrior and realizing half of what you say is sexist. I get what you were trying to say, but you didn’t say it. I think we can all agree that the camera isn’t okay. I’m interested to see what happens now that OnePlus has opened itself up to so much liability.
  - I like turtles
    
    It’s not sexist to say more women are sexually violated by men than men are by women. There are perverts for both genders, but statistically and historically, men are more likely to commit sex crimes, have child porn, and violate others sexually than women. Facts are not sexist, they are facts. Just because you don’t like a fact, doesn’t mean you get to cry sexism. Maybe look at the men around you and choose to help be part of the solution so future young girls and women don’t have to live being seen as objects rather than people. 🙄🤦‍♂️
    - Ticking Bomb
      
      Little sexist you. The typical modern feminist spreading her bias.
- Ticking Bomb
  
  To woman: you vilify and criminalize all men in general with your sexist and biased comments. Not all men do this, and yes, many women too use technology in very shameful ways. Please stop vilifying me and my sons and my friends, even my dead dad, simply for being men. It is not fair, nor beneficial for society. Be fair and think before inciting more gender hate onto the world. There’s enough of that out there and unfortunately it is women coming away with more harm after fed up men go berserk after being vilified without reason and criminalized unjustly. Think about that before launching guilt and accusing people just because you think it is fair to do so. Thank you.
  - Lisa
    
    To you: you take personally real statistics as if they are directed at you. Please stop feeling sorry for yourself for no reason. There is more violence among men and other men or women than among women, or by women towards men. Even though you feel picked on for the fact, it’s tough billies. I don’t recall anyone saying you were a rapist. Or perhaps he protesteth too much? Any dirty little secrets that are making you carry on so much? Grow up. A statement of fact isn’t about you. maybe your little world revolves around your poor little feelings and you, but ours doesn’t. Nobody has villified or criminalised all men. Maybe you didn’t do much comprehension in school? Read it all very slowly, one word at a time.
Elias

Pitiful, who comes up with this garbage, grow up.
Jorengel Gankee

They should remove it. Easy to say to behave responsively. What if it is youre daughter, wife or ur sister became victim if that feature.
- Yo Homie
  
  This is the stupidest thing to say. It’s clear you are gearing something solely because you don’t understand it. The simple answer, if it was my daughter, my wife, or my sister, they would NOT be a victim of “that feature”. That’s not how infrared works. It isn’t “x-ray” that’s going to reveal their naked body underneath a shroud of clothes. Infrared is light, and seeing it is not a secret spy weapon for the perverse… If they do remove it, it would solely be based on people like you who fear what they do not understand, and not because there was any possibility of becoming a “victim”. You should fear hidden cameras more than infrared light…
I like turtles

The thing that worries me the most is some freak pedophile getting ahold of this. How is this even legal? This is a visual invasion akin to someone hacking into your phone and listening to private conversations. People WILL abuse this technology, and as always, women and children will pay the highest price.
Dr. Dre

You guys realize it’s satire the phone isn’t emitting radiation to see through objects ahah
Ravi Saksena

I don’t know why people are taking the IR sensitive camera with negatively, thinking positively this camera can be put to good use for measuring face/body temperature during this pandemic, with some add-on app. Hope company will provide this as a built-in app.
William_Buttlicker

You guys are fucking wackjobs
- Grapher
  
  So says “William_Buttlicker”. LOL
Ticking Bomb

@I like turtles –> I’m a man and I’ve been sexually harassed by women several times throughout my life. Once I was almost raped by a very persistent woman (older than me) who scratched me and roughed me up while forcing herself onto me as I tried to get away from her. Did I report any of this? Nope! Why? First off, because prob nobody would have believed me. But also because honestly I just didn’t want to go through everything that doing so would have brought to my life. In the end, I figured it would be my word against hers, and who do you think the authorities and the law was going to believe? Women on the other hand, though… especially these days, will cry rape for all kinds of reasons, often when there was no rape or sexual or personal harm caused. Sometimes simply for a man asking them out or having consensual sex. Often they cry rape to squeze a big payday out of their victim or to try to destroy their credibility. That some men do rape women or other men or boys ocassionally? Of course these things do happen, no question about it. I was myself also sexually harassed and touched by a fckn older dude when I was just 8 or 9 yrs old. It was horrible because he threatened me if I ever said anything. This “man” btw eventually turned out to be gay (LGBT). I realized this many years later after I had returned from the military and went back home to enroll in college. The guy by then was full out of the closet, the freaking pedo. Anyway, just be careful when you go around pointing fingers claiming that men rape women or sexually harass women a lot more than women do to men. Believe me, that is not true. The truth is that women are much more careful when they misbehave sexually-wise, and DO get away with sexual misdeeds against men a lot more often than men do when they go a bit too far with a woman. The guilty gap may seem wide, which makes men look a lot more perverse. But in reality women are as sexually (or almost as) aggressive as men are, esp these days of female liberation and extreme feminism that we are living. Women are very sexual creatures by nature indeed, and I can attest to that. Only if you were male and appealing to the opposite sex you would realize this. That’s why I said don’t judge unless you can be both sexes and experiment life from both sides. Nobody in the world can be both man and female, so don’t pretend to know how truly perverted some women can be given the opportunity. And don’t assume men are more sexually perverted. Yes, lots of pervs out there… but many wear skirts and have female organs to put it lightly.
Gregory G Harding

It’s clear by the images they can’t actually see through the clothing, the IR light gathered from the stretched fabric is possible because the fabric is more porous when stretched. It’s not like we can see dangly bit. where’s his nipples in the photo? This is clickbait and will only enrage or worry people who don’t understand what they’re reading.
Albion

This is infrared photography. I use it all the time. The “seeing through clothes” is possible, depending on the fabric and the dye, as well as other things. Yet with over 15,000 photos, I have only had one image that could have been very slightly embarrassing and it simply showed a camisole under a very light blouse. No big deal.
Thelonius

This is a nothing burger. In order to see through fabric you need to be up close and the fabric has to be stretched very taught over what’s underneath. No one would be able to see through bras or bathing suits. Maybe leggings but you don’t need IR cameras for that as 90% of the time they’re see through anyway. If it was possible there’s already be numerous videos of of people doing it on tiktok or Twitter.
Yo Homie

X-ray vision?! Seeing through clothes!?

This article is just all wrong. The only controversy that will come of this if idiots getting upset over what they don’t understand, and OnePlus pulling the feature, not because of any real chance of harm, but because of the mass attention of stupidity. Don’t buckle OnePlus.
Piotr Stepien

Womens’ clothes reveal more than cover these days so who cares what smartphone camera shows with this freaky colours when one can see more with bare eyes ;)
John Beatty

OK, Diyphotography.net, I’m putting this out here, are you turning into a junk supplier of online content? Another Enquirer or Star type of trash. At least you can verify the tripe you share.
I’m not going to rehash what others have posted here as I don’t want to spend too much typing here. Much more of this and I am no longer here.
William James

Wait, didn’t we used to order something like this from the back of comic books? Along with magic sea horses and ant farms?