- Prospective ability to process both macro and telephoto images.*
The upcoming Xiaomi Mi Mix phone model will include a liquid lens camera. The company announced this yesterday in posts on the Weibo platform. As the name suggests, the lens includes a liquid layer, and the focus and focal length of the lens are changed by applying an electrical voltage. Xiaomi claims that the lens allows the camera to take almost any shot, from telephoto to macro photography, and also provides fast autofocus. The phone will be presented on March 29th. Liquid lenses have been on the market for several years, but they are commonly used in industries where traditional lenses with moving mechanical parts can wear out too quickly. Their compact size and versatility make them especially attractive for smartphones. Theoretically, a single liquid lens camera could combine multiple cameras found on the back of most flagship smartphones.
In addition to Xiaomi, there were rumors last year that Huawei was also exploring the possibility of using this technology in its smartphones.
Liquid lenses fit Xiaomi’s Mi Mix range, which has had some pretty experimental developments over the years. In 2018, the Mi Mix 3 became one of the first phones with a mechanical pop-up selfie camera, and the following year, the Mi Mix Alpha was released, with a screen that covered almost the entire device.