OnePlus Concept One shows off 'invisible camera' with more to come at CES

By Eric Abent/

Lots of tech companies will be showing up to CES with their latest and greatest on-hand, but OnePlus is bringing something special: a concept phone with a disappearing camera. OnePlus has been teasing this concept for a little while now, and today it dropped yet another teaser in which it claims the phone has some fancy camera tech. CES attendees will actually get to see the phone in person, so for now, this tease is all we're getting out of OnePlus.

The tweet that OnePlus shared today doesn't go into a ton of detail, simply pointing to the concept's "invisible camera," and "color-shifting glass technology." That tweet is accompanied by a short video that shows the camera array suddenly appearing from behind glass that normally hides it.

For more on the phone – which is officially called the OnePlus Concept One – we turn to Wired, which spoke to OnePlus co-founder and CEO Pete Lau and got to spend some hands-on time with the device. Wired says that OnePlus is working with McLaren on the Concept One, using the same glass tech that the latter company uses in some of its high-end cars. McLaren is frequent collaborator with OnePlus, and Wired notes that the cameras on the Concept One are the same ones that appear on the OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition.

The "invisible camera" effect is accomplished by using electrochromic glass to cover the lenses. Electrochromic glass can change its tint from opaque to translucent when powered, hiding the lenses most of the time but then revealing them when the camera app is opened. It's a neat feature, but Wired notes that seeing it in person was "a little anticlimactic."

At this point, OnePlus has only revealed how the invisible camera mechanism works and that the rear cameras in the concept are the same as the ones found on the 7T Pro McLaren Edition – a 48MP main camera and a 16MP ultra wide camera. We don't know much more about it at this point, but we'll probably learn more at CES. Just don't expect to see this concept make its way to full release anytime soon; though Lau says that OnePlus may "look at the possibility of making a device that's available for users more widely," for now OnePlus simply considers the Concept One to be an exploratory product.

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