Android app that uses camera in different way

[rafzy15]

I'm looking for smartphone app that uses camera in a different way (not only for photos). I found some app which can determine if battery in remote control is charged or car app that inform you about people near the street when is dark (both uses infrared). Do you know any similar app that can be used in secuirity, 3d transform or just make our life easier?
Thanks in advance!

 

[funkylogik]

Do those apps actually work? Can you post links?
I just can't imagine that a smartphone camera sensor (or software) is capable of picking up infrared....

 

[codesplice]

Digital camera sensors definitely can detect infrared light (try pointing your phone's camera at the business end of a TV remote while you change the channel - you'll see the blinking infrared LEDs).

Can that tell you how much juice is left in a battery? I'm gonna go with "no".

 

[funkylogik]

Oh yeah lol... Cool!

 

[codesplice]

Maybe rafzy15 knows something that we don't.

 

[rafzy15]

I mean check battery level in sense of there is the light on the screen or no.

 

[funkylogik]

Ahh understood
So does the car one work?

 

[EarlyMon]

No.

There's a Night Vision Camera in the Play Store but that's as far as it's going to go - and it's not true night vision.

In the late 90s, Sony sold over 3/4 million camcorders with an IR capability that immediately got abused because it did a pretty good job seeing through clothes.

You're never going to see that casually available on consumer products again.

You can buy devices for law enforcement, the military, and hunting that provide true night vision, and you can find night vision security cameras - but that's about it.

It's true that you can overload the camera sensor by facing it directly into an active IR source - but that's not usual, and while creating current in a CMOS sensor, isn't really going to cross the bridge to night vision either.

However - Check out "Seek Thermal"

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tyriansystems.SeekThermal

You can use that app with an actual thermal camera and that may help with security.

 

[funkylogik]

Dammit that's my perverted plans foiled!!

 

[EarlyMon]

Rotflmao

 

[codesplice]

However - Check out "Seek Thermal"

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tyriansystems.SeekThermal

You can use that app with an actual thermal camera and that may help with security.

I keep trying to come up with a legitimate reason to get one of those. Haven't found one yet, but I'm hunting!

 

[Mr. Lucky]

I keep trying to come up with a legitimate reason to get one of those.

Why let legitimacy get in the way of fun?

 

[funkylogik]

Why let legitimacy get in the way of fun?

... And looking through clothes

 

[fdbryant3]

There are a couple of citizen science projects that turn your phone into a Cosmic Ray dectector:

Crayfis (Cosmic Rays Found In Smartphones)
Deco (Distributed Electronic Cosmic-ray Observatory)

Not sure why but CRAYFIS has gotten a lot of press despite only being in limited beta, while DECO appears to be up and running. Make of that what you will. Either way SCIENCE.

 

[Mr. Lucky]

How about Google Goggles?

 

[mikedt]

Many cameras have an IR filter in them, to cut-down the IR sensitivity of the CMOS sensor. With some of the Logitech Quickcam webcams, a mod was to disassemble and remove the IR filter, makes it really sensitive to IR, which probably could see through clothes, but it also messed up the camera's colour rendering. That's why they have an IR filter, for correct colour rendering, especially of things like fire and radiant hot surfaces, otherwise too much IR sensitivity can through it off AFAIK.

Security cameras are usually quite sensitive to IR, especially one's with built-in IR LED illumination, and they give a colour image in daylight as well.