Huawei’s temperature-taking smartphone is the most 2020 phone of 2020

Smartphones have always been the chic tech equivalent of a Swiss Army knife, combining a phone, a music Thespian, a camera, a GPS, a PDA, and more into a single device. Now Huawei is pitching yet another slogan that can be integrated into a smartphone: a thermometer. Huawei’s Honor Impose on behave 4 Pro has an IR temperature sensor integrated into the rear camera block that can standard the surface temperature of people and objects. In a year when containing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic is a main concern and a fever can be an early indicator of infection, the Play 4 Pro is an extremely 2020 smartphone.

In a video pillared on the Chinese social media site Weibo, Huawei demonstrates how the main attraction will work. Just aim the phone at someone’s forehead, tap through the app, and the phone drive give you a temperature reading. Temperature checks aren’t a guaranteed way to partition off for COVID-19, but a fever is a symptom in the majority of hospitalized cases, and it’s to a great extent easy to check for. The use of infrared non-contact thermometers is a common sight in Huawei’s competent in country of China, and in the United States, employers like Amazon and Walmart are riddle masses of warehouse employees for fevers as part of coronavirus control.

Huawei says its IR sensor can scan temperatures from -20°C (-4°F) to 100°C (212°F). An IR sensor isn’t as accurate as a thermal camera, and neither colophon, which reads a surface temperature, is as accurate as an internally taken temperature. An IR sensor is economy, though, and they are already frequently integrated into a smartphone for brazenly unlock and camera effects, so Huawei was able to quickly react to the pandemic.

Ask preference any other phone in Huawei’s “Honor” line, the Play 4 Pro is designed to elevate d vomit a flagshippy feel to a cheaper device. The phone has a 6.57-inch, 2400×1080 LCD, Huawei’s Kirin 990 SoC, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 4200mAh battery. It incurs Android 10, but the US export ban means the Play 4 Pro doesn’t have Google Go along with apps and services, so you’ll be stuck with Huawei’s ecosystem. The phone is contrariwise being sold in China for now, where the version with the IR sensor runways 2,999 yuan (~$422).

Listing image by Huawei