Avoid Aiming Your Phone at These Vehicles, It Might Damage Your Camera | Carscoops

      Lidar is installed in new vehicles to enhance safety, but it is certainly not safe for your smartphone camera’s sensor.

      14 hours ago

      by Chris Chilton

      A viral video demonstrates how the lidar system on a Volvo EX90 can damage the smartphone used to film it.

      The lidar’s laser has been shown to fry some pixels in the camera’s CMOS sensor.

      Human eyes are unaffected by the lidar laser, which emits pulses to gauge distances.

      In today's social media-driven world, it’s only natural to want to showcase your new car through photos and videos. However, if your vehicle is equipped with the latest advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), you may want to reconsider capturing that moment with your expensive $1,200 smartphone.

      Related: Nvidia Believes "We’re Not Close" To Full Self-Driving Cars, Cautions Against Rushing

      A video gaining thousands of views online features Reddit user u/Jeguetelli filming the roof-mounted lidar system of his Volvo EX90, which ends up damaging his costly smartphone’s camera sensor. As the camera zooms in on the lidar beam, which pulses to measure distances, it leaves a trail of light on the screen, indicating that the laser has burned some individual pixels in the sensor.

      The Effect of Lidar on Your Phone Camera

      You might be asking yourself if lidar poses a danger. The intensity of lidar beams is heavily regulated, and according to the American National Standards Institute, vehicle lidar systems comply with Class 1 standards, meaning they are safe for human eyes, so there's no cause for alarm. They won’t cause laser eye damage, but they can still harm your phone camera.

      As pointed out by Car and Driver’s Gannon Burgett, who has expertise in both CMOS chips and vehicles, the damage to the camera occurs only when the Redditor’s phone switches to its telephoto lens mode. The camera shows no signs of damage in the initial or final segments of the video, which are taken in a wider angle.

      Burgett believes that wide-angle shots pose no risk to the sensor unless you are extremely close to the lidar source. However, the telephoto mode, with its smaller apertures and "more focused optical path," which are excellent for long-distance captures, also increases the risk of damage to the camera.

      This isn’t entirely a new issue—there are professional filmmakers who have encountered similar problems, having had their cameras damaged at events with elaborate laser light displays when one of the beams struck the lens directly. Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean you can’t capture impressive shots for Instagram of your new lidar-equipped vehicle; you just need to be mindful of your shooting methods.