Up until last week, the color filter on the OnePlus 8 Pro was largely dismissed as being a gimmick. That is until it was discovered that the color filter camera could act as an X-ray and see-through certain plastic objects and even certain types of clothing under the right lighting conditions. The latter posed a major privacy risk as it could be abused by people with malicious intention which is why OnePlus has now announced that it is going to disable the color filter camera on the OnePlus 8 Pro with a software update that will be pushed out within a week.
As of now, the company has made this announcement on China"s micro-blogging site Weibo for HydrogenOS, though an announcement for the rest of the world and OxygenOS should follow soon as well. The company plans to work around the X-ray problem of the color filter camera and then enable it again in a future update.
The OnePlus 8 Pro was the first smartphone to launch with a color filter camera. OnePlus uses the sensor for some camera effects, though it has limited usefulness. However, ever since it was discovered that the camera sensor could act as an X-ray and see-through certain objects and clothing, social media platforms and online forums have been flooded with OnePlus 8 Pro owners posting photos from it. While having an X-ray camera on a phone is definitely a cool feature to show off, it also poses a major threat to one"s privacy which is why OnePlus" decision to disable it is a wise one.