After the OnePlus Concept One, the company’s R&D team has been relatively quiet, with the first concept device never reaching the commercial market. Now, OnePlus has announced the OnePlus 8T Concept, a redesigned version of the OnePlus 8T—with a couple of radical tweaks.
The headliner here is the colour-changing capabilities of the OnePlus 8T Concept, which is achieved by using a combination of a colour-changing film and metal oxide in the glass back of the phone. This is how it works, as explained by OnePlus:
“The OnePlus 8T Concept ECMF uses a colour-changing film that contains metal oxide in glass. The valence state of the metal ions varies under different voltages so when the metal oxide activates, the color of the glass changes from a dark blue to a light silver.”
Before we move on, have a look at a real-world demonstration of the phone’s unique chameleon-like abilities:
What the OnePlus 8T Concept can do
So, how useful can a colour-morphing smartphone be? Here’s where it gets interesting. OnePlus says that when combined with mmWave technology, the design of the phone becomes “truly interactive”. MmWave tech, which should be familiar to those of you who have been reading up on 5G, allows the phone to transmit and receive electromagnetic waves via a module on the back of the phone.
Basically, the technology here allows the OnePlus 8T Concept to “perceive, image, locate, and track objects”. This opens up a range of possibilities, including touchless notifications, or even a breathing monitor. For the latter, OnePlus says that the colour of the phone will change in sync, making it a useful device to measure your breathing.
“The OnePlus 8T Concept, in effect, breathes with you.”
For touchless notifications, the back of the phone could flash for incoming calls or messages, while users can reject or accept calls by using hand gestures over the back of the phone. This sounds fairly similar to the Pixel 4‘s Motion Sense feature, although Google’s phone most certainly does not change its colour on demand.
If all of that sounds to you like a really cool set of features to have on your phone, you aren’t alone. However, a concept phone is… just a concept. Which also means that we might never actually see the OnePlus 8T Concept become commercially available—particularly if the OnePlus Concept One is anything to go by.
Still, it bodes well for the future. Can’t decide on a colour variant for your new phone? How about a phone that dynamically changes colours?
