Phone manufacturers are constantly looking to connect with new technology and features, and if they are new the teasers are legitimate, Xiaomi could have a real advantage over the competition with what appears to be a Liquid camera lens designed for a future Mi Mix phone.
Based on a a handful of pictures and clip shared on Weibo, Xiaomi is trying to replace the traditional glass elements and focus motors used in today’s smartphone lenses with a liquid lens that can be controlled and adjusted by applying an electric charge. This would allow the lens to change form focus on subjects of various distances, Xiaomi claiming that the technology will lead to longer zooms and faster autofocus than traditional smartphone camera lenses.
While the idea of a liquid lens might seem a little strange or far away, the principle is actually quite similar to how the human eye works. themght penetrates the eye through the cornea, passes through the iris and is then concentrated by the crystalline layer of the eye and the aqueous fluid before finally hitting your retina.
Today, due to their cost and complexity, liquid lenses are usually reserved for specialized industrial uses where traditional glass lenses may be too fragile or delicate. However, this is not the first time a smartphone company has teased the idea of a liquid camera lens. Huawei has patented its own liquid lens last year.
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The great advantage of a liquid lens is that it could allow smartphone companies to use the same lens for a range of focal lengths, yet be thin enough to fit in a phone. This stands in stark contrast to today’s phones, which use multiple image sensors each with their own own goal to support provide a the device’s primary, ultra-wide, macro and telephoto cameras.
The current approach is a kind of brute force method activated by the fact that adding additional image sensors to a device is relatively inexpensive, which has led to the creation of devices with a large number of lenses on the back (see the Nokia 9 PureView and Light L16).
Xiaomi’s liquid lens may not be ready enough for the consumer devices still, but Demonstrating the liquid lens on a new Mi Mix concept makes a lot of sense because Xiaomi has historically used the Mi Mix line to test new models or technologies that the company is researching. Other concepts that the company has tried include the Mi Mix Alpha from 2019 with its coatingaround the screen and a Mi Mix portable concept since the beginning of this year.
Although not much else is known about the future of Mi Mix, XiaIMO says it will unveil the device on March 29, so we won’t do that you have to wait a long time to find out more.