Day: July 19, 2024

Nothing’s ultra-cheap subbrand CMF is restricting users’ independent access to the $200 Phone 1’s depth sensor. It’s a mere 2 MP lens and one of only two sensors on the phone’s exterior, but some users claimed it gave them Superman-like X-ray vision to see through thin plastic or even some bedsheets. 

The CMF Phone 1 has proved popular with the budget-conscious and DIY crowd for the phone’s low price and easily customizable shell. It has a much more constrained look than Nothing’s other products; it features some of the same software featured on Nothing’s recent Phone (2a). It sports a 50 MP primary camera, though two sensors are on the phone’s screw-on chassis. The second is a depth sensor, though it’s not something users can physically access on their own. One YouTuber named Maxwell Lu posted a video purportedly showing how the sensor could see through the rear panel of his TV remote, a beanbag, and some bedsheets.

Nothing’s co-founder and head of marketing, Akis Evangelidis, took to Twitter to confirm the depth sensor’s see-through capabilities. He claimed the depth sensor normally works with the main sensor to create large depth-of-field effects when taking photos in Portrait Mode. Since this sensor doesn’t have an infrared light filter, it could see through some semi-transparent objects. This works best against thin black plastic, though it can see through some other synthetic materials.

Evangelidis said they were updating its phones to remove access to the depth sensor via third-party apps. That was supposed to come in an update sometime this week. Gizmodo reached out to Nothing to confirm if the update has hit users’ phones, and we’ll update this post if we learn more.

Gizmodo could not independently confirm whether this worked as shown. Lu claimed he managed to access the sensor by running a third-party camera app in developer mode. This is very, very similar to a similar controversy with the OnePlus 8 Pro phone back in 2020. That device also had an infrared camera filter feature similar to the CMF Phone 1’s secondary sensor. 

Accessing that camera filter through a third-party app enabled it to see through some thin plastic devices, such as TV remotes. However, it wasn’t possible to do X-ray vision to look through people’s clothes unless you held them very close and they were wearing very thin garments made with some truly off-brand materials.

So it’s not like anybody with a CMF Phone 1 was ever capable of using the depth sensor to become the next breed of public creep, but it was an unintended use for the phone. In that same Twitter thread, Evangelidis complained that “people are trying to come as us from every angle” because “they aren’t comfortable with our success.”