Ryan Haines / Android Authority
In summary
- A video went viral after a user gained access to the CMF Phone 1’s depth camera and discovered that it allowed him to see through certain objects.
- Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis has now responded to the video, explaining what is happening.
- Evangelidis says that within a week they will restrict third-party apps from accessing the depth sensor output.
The CMF Phone 1 has just been launched and is getting a lot of praise for being a fun and affordable Android handset. Although it has only been a few days since it was released, users have already discovered something shocking about the device. It seems that the depth sensor can be used to see through certain objects.
In order to make the first phone from CMF by Nothing as affordable as it is, the company has made some compromises. One of those compromises is the rear camera, which features a 50MP main camera and an unknown depth sensor instead of a real secondary camera. CMF has made it so that this depth sensor cannot be accessed in the normal way. However, one crafty user found a workaround to access it anyway.
By running a third-party app in developer mode, the user in question was able to access the output of the depth sensor. At first glance, it just looked like a low-resolution monochrome camera, but things changed when they pointed the camera at the back of a TV remote. The depth sensor was somehow able to see the batteries inside the remote, despite the cover still being on.
Does CMF PHONE 1 have a transparent camera?
Akis was not wrong at all man! They did not trust his words at all But that 2MP is not a normal one but it is a transparent camera or x-ray camera we can say!!
In this price range this thing is commendable and damn amazing
After the video went viral, Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis took to X (formerly Twitter) to explain what’s going on. According to Evangelidis, the depth sensor in their new device doesn’t have an infrared light filter, and this IR light can sometimes “reveal the internal structure of thin or semi-transparent objects.”
At Nothing, we have some of the most knowledgeable and cunning users in the world. It’s also fair to say that our popularity attracts a lot of criticism. Ultimately, this leads to continuous improvement, which benefits users – so we see it as a good thing.
While some see this as a pretty cool feature for a $200 phone, others see it as a privacy issue. Out of an abundance of caution, Evangelidis announced that they will now restrict third-party apps from accessing the output of this depth sensor. The change is expected to roll out via a software update “within the week.”
When asked why the company decided to restrict access, Evangelidis agreed that it would be a cool feature to leave in place. He went on to say, “Some people are coming at us from all sides, my man. They’re not happy with our success. So we have to err on the side of caution.”