Why You Shouldn’t Zoom in on LiDAR with a Smartphone Camera

A Reddit consumer named Jeguetelli just lately realized a pricey lesson whereas filming a brand-new Volvo EX90. As his iPhone 16 Professional Max zoomed in on the automotive’s roof-mounted LiDAR sensor, a blinding show of crimson, pink, and purple specks erupted throughout the display screen. These weren’t festive digital confetti—they had been the final gasps of his digital camera’s sensor, completely scarred by the encounter.

Never film the new Ex90 because you will break your cell camera.Lidar lasers burn your camera.
byu/Jeguetelli inVolvo

LiDAR, brief for Mild Detection and Ranging, is sort of a superpower for automobiles. It fires hundreds of invisible infrared laser pulses each second, mapping the world in 3D with astonishing precision. These pulses bounce off objects—pedestrians, site visitors cones, different autos—and return to the sensor, creating an in depth level cloud that helps the automotive navigate. On the Volvo EX90, the LiDAR system, provided by Luminar, makes use of a 1550-nanometer wavelength, which permits it to detect small objects like a tire on a darkish highway as much as 120 meters away, even at freeway speeds.

Your smartphone digital camera, whether or not it’s an iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, or one other flagship, depends on a fragile piece of tech known as a CMOS sensor. This sensor captures mild by means of a lens, changing it into the crisp images and movies you put up on-line. A Bayer filter, layered over the sensor, separates colours to provide your pictures their vibrant reds, blues, and greens. Right here’s the place issues get dicey: when a LiDAR’s high-powered infrared laser hits your digital camera lens, it’s like directing a concentrated beam of vitality straight at that sensor. The lens focuses the laser’s mild, amplifying its depth. For a CMOS sensor, that is like staring into the solar—besides the solar doesn’t pulse at hundreds of occasions per second. It leads to overheated pixels, melted microlenses, and a Bayer filter that’s been scorched right into a everlasting rainbow of lifeless spots.

Why does this occur? It comes right down to wavelengths and energy. The 1550-nanometer infrared lasers utilized in methods just like the EX90’s are invisible to the human eye, which is why they’re thought-about eye-safe; the attention’s cornea and lens take up this wavelength earlier than it might attain the retina. However digital camera sensors are a distinct story. Whereas they’re much less delicate to infrared mild above 1100 nanometers, the targeted depth of a LiDAR’s laser can nonetheless overwhelm them, particularly once you’re filming up shut or utilizing a telephoto lens. Zooming in, as Jeguetelli did, switches your cellphone to a lens with a narrower discipline of view, concentrating the laser’s vitality much more. The injury exhibits up as colourful artifacts—these crimson, pink, and purple specks—as a result of the Bayer filter and underlying sensor parts are actually burning out.

This isn’t only a Volvo downside. LiDAR is popping up on extra automobiles, from the Polestar 3 to Mercedes’ S-Class, and even Tesla, lengthy a LiDAR skeptic, reportedly purchased $2.1 million price of the tech from Luminar just lately. Past automobiles, laser-based methods like these at concert events or mild exhibits also can fry your digital camera. A Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely consumer reported comparable injury after filming a laser-heavy occasion, with a white dot and intersecting strains marring their images. The difficulty is so well-known amongst skilled photographers that many use protecting filters when taking pictures close to lasers. Volvo, to its credit score, warns homeowners explicitly: “Don’t level a digital camera instantly on the lidar.” However until you’re scouring the guide, you may not know till it’s too late.
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