After teasing OnePlus Concept One smartphone last month, the Chinese smartphone marker has now officially unveiled the device at CES 2020, as promised. This is the first phone to make use of color-shifting glass technology aka electrochromic glass technology.
Thanks to this technology, it can change transparency and gives the smartphone an ‘invisible camera. For this, the company has partnered with McLaren for the third time, and the design of the phone draws inspiration from the McLaren’s design ethos and approach.
The glass of the OnePlus Concept One smartphone uses organic particles to create changes in transparency so that the glass covering the camera lenses can shift in an instant from opaque black to entirely clear.
The phone’s design integrates both glass and leather, using the same luxury trim specially tailored for McLaren’s supercars, in the iconic McLaren papaya orange – a tribute to McLaren Racing’s history and seen on the current McLaren Racing Formula 1 car.
Electrochromic glass is usually composed of two panels of glass with a color-shifting material in between them. For the OnePlus Concept One, the company managed to achieve something far thinner than the industry average. The glass panels are just 0.1mm each, for a combined total of only 0.35mm.
Do note that the OnePlus Concept One is currently just a proof of concept. The company says that in order to make it potentially ready, it would need a large amount of testing and verification.
