OnePlus files patent for in-bezel smartphone selfie camera

Dutch technology magazine LetsGoDigital uncovered a cool patent filing by OnePlus. The Chinese smartphone company is exploring in-bezel selfie cameras for phones by hiding a tiny front-facing camera above the phone's display.

LetsGoDigital uncovered a 23-pager patent found over at the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Office). OnePlus Technology (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd filed a patent that illustrated an OnePlus smartphone with a hole in its bezel beneath a 'transparent cover plate'. LetsGoDigital has since created a few renders based on the patent's description of the in-bezel selfie camera.

According to the patent's abstract, OnePlus stacked - in the following order - a transparent cover plate, display, front-facing camera, and a circuit board to create the breakthrough. OnePlus said that the arrangement offers a high screen-to-body ratio, with low production costs and high product reliability.

The last line in the patent's abstract likely refers to existing solutions for hiding the selfie camera in smartphones. In-display alternatives see the light of day, but early consumer-ready phones with in-display front cameras are critically panned for their imaging performance despite the innovation (1, 2).

Whether OnePlus implements the in-bezel alternative for its phones' front camera remains to be seen since the phone brand hasn't made any announcements around their patent yet.

Source: LetsGoDigital