OnePlus has a new concept phone to show off, which is a way to annoy its technology, maybe, maybe, maybe it will come in one of the future phones of the company. The OnePlus 8T Concept is a phone similar to the OnePlus 8T that was released a few months ago, but has got a pretty unique rear design that changes color with a motion-tracking radar module.
According to OnePlus, this color-changing effect is achieved with a film containing metal oxide, which sits under the glass of the phone and changes color as different voltages are applied to it. At its default, it can change color to show phone notifications, like incoming phone calls, like notification light that has been included on its phone in the past. But where things get really interesting is when it connects to the concept phone’s rear-mounted radar module.
This module, built into the camera’s bump on the back of the phone, uses millimeter wave radar to bounce the electromagnetic waves around it and give the phone “proofs, images, location and track objects.” However, OnePlus says the MMwave technology is “borrowed from 5G,” adding that the radar module is different from any MMwave communication module in the phone.
Functionally, it looks similar to the Pixel 4’s radar-enabled motion sense technology to G, allowing you to swipe your hand over the phone to release music bands or mute alarms. It can also detect your presence to show you time and any notifications. The functionality was interesting, but Google did not include it in later phones.
The concept phone can also use this motion tracker for simple things like answering phone calls with gestures or providing more advanced functionality such as sensing the user’s breath. This can be combined with its color-change back to provide some interesting use cases. For example, an incoming call may change its back color to indicate a call, and then you can gesture to accept or reject it without touching the phone manually. Or the radar can detect your breathing, and then change the color of its back with it in a timely manner, “effectively making the phone a biofeedback device,” says OnePlus.
It’s an ambitious collection of features, but there’s no guarantee we’ll see them coming into the consumer device. Finally, a little over a year ago OnePlus was showing the OnePlus Concept One, a curious device that used electrochromic glass to make its rear camera disappear (and which also served as a pretty neat little ND filter). However, this technology will yet appear in any of the company’s flagship phones.
Like its previous Concept One, OnePlus says it has no plans to sell the OnePlus 8T concept commercially, so the company thought best of it as a small showcase of what it was doing. But with any luck, the technology could still one day come on one of its real smartphones.
