When you’re using your phone to take photos of a car, you probably wouldn’t expect anything bad to happen to the camera. Not unless you dropped it, anyway. Unfortunately, though, it’s quite easy to end up destroying your smartphone’s camera thanks to new hardware on modern cars.
Reddit user Jeguetelli took to the r/Volvo subreddit to raise the alarm on this issue. The post contains a video of the Volvo EX90, shot on a regular smartphone. As the video focuses on the sensor package on the roof of the Volvo, something strange starts to happen. Random colored pixels start to appear, almost as if burned into the camera’s field of vision.
The cause of this strange camera malady? It’s all because of lasers, and it’s a problem you might want to watch out for in the future.
Never film the new Ex90 because you will break your cell camera.Lidar lasers burn your camera.
byu/Jeguetelli inVolvo
This happened because the Volvo EX90 has a lidar sensor, mounted in the sensor package just above the windscreen. Lidar (or LIDAR) is an acronym for “light detection and ranging,” and the word’s similarity to radar isn’t an accident. Radar systems use radio waves to find the range of distant objects; lidar systems do the same thing, but with laser light instead. By shooting out a pulse of light, and timing how long it takes to return, the lidar sensor can determine the distance to objects in its immediate surroundings. By scanning the sensor around, it’s possible to build up a 3D image of the world around the sensor.
The lidar sensor is used to support the various driver assists in the Volvo EX90, like the pending Level 3 self-driving system that is yet to be officially enabled. While cameras can provide useful visual data to a self-driving system, a lidar sensor can provide accurate readings of the distance from the vehicle to other objects or features of the environment. Other vehicles are using lidar, too, or plan to in the future. In particular, these sensors are most obvious on self-driving taxis from operators like Cruise and Waymo.
The laser in the Volvo’s lidar sensor operates in the infrared range at a wavelength of 1550 nanometers. The laser is classified as eye-safe. However, the device can cause damage to cameras. The laser light can end up being focused onto an imaging sensor by the camera’s optics, where it can cause permanent damage. This is because the focused laser light has a very high energy density, which is intense enough to overheat and destroy the delicate image sensor elements.
For its part, Volvo readily admits this issue in an explainer article on its website. In the automaker’s own words:
Lidar light waves can damage external cameras. Do not point a camera directly at the lidar. The lidar, being a laser based system, uses infrared light waves that may cause damage to certain camera devices. This can include smartphones or phones equipped with a camera.
This is not a chance occurrence, either. Since the launch of the EX90, multiple reports have surfaced of the lidar system causing damage to cameras. Journalist William Cha reported the issue in January this year, posting on Facebook regarding how his iPhone camera was destroyed. As reported by Boosted.dk, YouTuber Andras Horvath reported similar issues after “close contact” with a vehicular lidar sensor, also suspected to be an EX90.
This problem isn’t just limited to lidar, of course. Wedding photographers know the problem well, as YouTuber and photographer Alain Martinez explains. Laser light shows on the dancefloor can kill an expensive camera sensor incredibly quickly, even if they’re officially “eye safe.”
This issue could become more prevalent as more vehicles on the road start using lidar sensors en masse. It’s an attractive technology, able to readily create high-precision 3D models of the world around a vehicle, at ranges of many hundreds of feet. It can detect everything from traffic cones to pedestrians and other vehicles, making it highly useful for self-driving systems as well as things like automatic emergency braking. Most high-level self-driving cars feature one or more lidar sensors as a matter of course.
There are ways to protect against this occurring. It’s all about distance and angles. The farther your camera is away from the laser, the better. You don’t want to zoom in, either. It’s unlikely vehicle lidar systems will ever be so powerful that they’re dangerous to photograph from a large distance. For this to happen, they’d likely breach eye safety limits and wouldn’t be safe for on-road use. However, when you’re up close and personal, or zooming right in, that’s when damage is most likely.
Ideally, if you’re photographing a lidar-equipped vehicle, you’re best advised to do so while it’s turned off or the sensor is otherwise disabled. Be wary out there, lest your expensive smartphone or camera become useless in short order.
Image credits: Volvo, Jeguetelli via Reddit screenshot
Do they work on red light and speed cameras? Asking for a friend…
Wonder if one could bump up the lasers output power, make it steerable and go battleship mode on annoying drivers,,, just kidding!
We can only hope that it starts degrading ALPR and speed cameras en masse.
This could lead to a hilarious future where lidar-equipped self-driving vehicles go around bricking every exterior Tesla camera.
I think it could be a good Battle Bots type show. I’d watch.
This was my first though also.
I can’t help but wonder that if these become commonplace, will using any digital camera near traffic damage the sensors? Will they damage other vehicles camara based systems? Will all Tesla’s suddenly become blind and unable to FSD? Will special industry standard filters be required on all CCDs in the future to avoid damage?
I have questions. Do you have any of the answers? If so, enlighten me.
Tesla is already unable to FSD.
True indeed!
Street Wars : Episode IV
The Self-Driving Wars
As fleets of Emperor Musks fake self driving robots expand across the galaxy, bringing chaos and no-responsibility accidents to every corner of the urban core, a small band of Swede Rebels rises up to start lasering the enemies weak camera based tech. Perhaps there is a new hope for humanity…
Will damage phone cameras but not human eyes. Now I’m very doubtful.
Probably low enough energy that it will burn a CCD, but not a retina.
IR is absorbed by the fluid in the eyeball. However, the cornea could be impacted.
Were that the case, I would NOT want to be a LIDAR manufacturer or AV or vehicle manufacturers that uses it when the lawsuits start coming in.
Ooo, new bank robbery vehicle!
Senseless destruction.
Volvo should market this to celebrities as a way to deal with paparazzi.
AHA! This explains Musk’s aversion to LIDAR.
Swedish pace laser
What are the chances of 1 car’s lidar destroying another car’s camera on the road?
Poor Tesla with their camera-only system.
Poor vehicles with backup cameras, trailers with cameras, and 4X4s with trail cameras.
Ugh, I didn’t even think about that until you mentioned it. This means if there’s a LIDAR-equipped car near me when I go to change lanes with the blind spot camera assist on it may ruin the camera in my truck. Not cool.
I wonder if LIDAR affects laser speed detection equipment? Do any jurisdictions use laser speed detection anymore?
Edit to add. I didn’t see that Canopysaurus beat me to this comment
Totally frequency and/or encoding dependent. So probably not.
Wonder if the LiDAR can affect speed and license plate cameras?
For that matter, backup and trailer camera systems
Careful, they will market it as an added-cost option!
Dr. Evil driving around in Volvos with Frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads!
I’d be curious to know if this will affect dashcams (everyone) / bodycams (cops). I don’t even want to begin to think about the implications, but this could be a real wildcard.
It would be interesting to know if Volvo themselves has ensured that their vehicle cameras (used for lane detection or parking assistance or whatever) has designed them to be safe from Lidar damage. It would be pretty crazy if new cars went around destroying each other’s cameras.
It’s the beginnings of our Twisted Metal/Mad Max timeline.
Good point. I think that would take us into the land of bizarrely amusing – so…maybe we allow it for a bit?
I’m extremely surprised I haven’t heard about this issue in China, where at least 10-25% of cars probably have LiDAR in a few urban centers like Shanghai or Guangzhou/Shenzhen.
I bet Subaru is feeling pretty smug that they only equipped their cars with good old-fashioned cameras. And Gaydar, they’ve always had that. Mostly in the older models.
Not if some Volvo drives by and destroys all their cameras!
Oooh, the plot thickens!
Isn’t tesla cameras only too?
Older Subarus also used LIDAR, actually. It stands for “Lesbian Individual Detection and Ranging”
Picard, his face in his hand.
Apparently cameras can defeat Gaydar. That’s why Subaru owners usually bring their own but sniffing assistant.
Part of this is because smartphone sensors seem to have pretty loose infrared light filtering, which is why you can see a purplish color when you point a remote at the camera for example. Smartphone camera makers implementing stronger infrared wavelength filtering should reduce/eliminate this problem.
This is unlike event photography where the lasers are in the visible wavelength intended to be captured.
First this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_47utWAoupo
and now it’s shooting lasers. What’s next, taking our jobs and daughters.
“Lock up your jobs, lock up your daughters, they be lasering everyone out here!”
Here’s hoping these systems start frying speed cameras.
Volvo drivers, driving at 54mph and having perfect driving records going around destroying speed cameras and license plate readers is particularly ironic.