Smartphone cameras tend to fail miserably when it comes to shooting in low lighting, but the latest device from Lumigon can actually shoot in complete darkness. The Lumigon T3 is the first smartphone to come equipped with a night-vision camera.
While the T3 includes three seperate cameras, its biggest feat is packing a 4 megapixel night-vision camera into a smartphone that’s 7.9mm thick. Lumigon, a Denmark-based company, revealed the T3 earlier this week.
The night-vision camera reads infrared light, which is invisible to the naked eye. But true night vision goes a step beyond a simple IR camera, IR film, or a DSLR equipped with an IR filter. To take photos in complete darkness, you need an IR light source. For that, the T3 uses a dual IR flash, which casts a burst of IR light to illuminate the scene. While the camera can read that IR light, the human eye can’t.
Of course, since the night vision is in an IR camera, photos are captured in black and white and have characteristically unusual shading. But, if you’re going ghost hunting or on a secret spy mission or simply want to see what’s lurking in your backyard, the T3 makes it possible (and still fits in your pocket).
While the T3, which runs on Android 6.0, appears to be the first smartphone with the IR-type night vision, the CAT S60, has a built-in thermal camera that can also be used as a way to see people and other heat sources in total darkness.
The T3 also has a 13 megapixel, 4K plain, old visible light rear camera, and the front-facing camera also has a flash. While the stainless steel body, tough Gorilla Glass screen, and set of sensors look pretty sleek, too, the reason to fork over $740 is largely the ability to see in the dark.
