Why You Shouldn’t Zoom in on LiDAR with a Smartphone Camera

A Reddit user named Jeguetelli recently learned a costly lesson while filming a brand-new Volvo EX90. As his iPhone 16 Pro Max zoomed in on the car’s roof-mounted LiDAR sensor, a dazzling display of red, pink, and purple specks erupted across the screen. Those weren’t festive digital confetti—they were the last gasps of his camera’s sensor, permanently scarred by the encounter.

Never film the new Ex90 because you will break your cell camera.Lidar lasers burn your camera.
byu/Jeguetelli inVolvo

LiDAR, short for Light Detection and Ranging, is like a superpower for cars. It fires thousands of invisible infrared laser pulses every second, mapping the world in 3D with astonishing precision. These pulses bounce off objects—pedestrians, traffic cones, other vehicles—and return to the sensor, creating a detailed point cloud that helps the car navigate. On the Volvo EX90, the LiDAR system, supplied by Luminar, uses a 1550-nanometer wavelength, which allows it to detect small objects like a tire on a dark road up to 120 meters away, even at highway speeds.



Your smartphone camera, whether it’s an iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, or another flagship, relies on a delicate piece of tech called a CMOS sensor. This sensor captures light through a lens, converting it into the crisp photos and videos you post online. A Bayer filter, layered over the sensor, separates colors to give your images their vibrant reds, blues, and greens. Here’s where things get dicey: when a LiDAR’s high-powered infrared laser hits your camera lens, it’s like directing a concentrated beam of energy straight at that sensor. The lens focuses the laser’s light, amplifying its intensity. For a CMOS sensor, this is like staring into the sun—except the sun doesn’t pulse at thousands of times per second. It results in overheated pixels, melted microlenses, and a Bayer filter that’s been scorched into a permanent rainbow of dead spots.

Why does this happen? It comes down to wavelengths and power. The 1550-nanometer infrared lasers used in systems like the EX90’s are invisible to the human eye, which is why they’re considered eye-safe; the eye’s cornea and lens absorb this wavelength before it can reach the retina. But camera sensors are a different story. While they’re less sensitive to infrared light above 1100 nanometers, the focused intensity of a LiDAR’s laser can still overwhelm them, especially when you’re filming up close or using a telephoto lens. Zooming in, as Jeguetelli did, switches your phone to a lens with a narrower field of view, concentrating the laser’s energy even more. The damage shows up as colorful artifacts—those red, pink, and purple specks—because the Bayer filter and underlying sensor components are literally burning out.

This isn’t just a Volvo problem. LiDAR is popping up on more cars, from the Polestar 3 to Mercedes’ S-Class, and even Tesla, long a LiDAR skeptic, reportedly bought $2.1 million worth of the tech from Luminar recently. Beyond cars, laser-based systems like those at concerts or light shows can also fry your camera. A Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra user reported similar damage after filming a laser-heavy event, with a white dot and intersecting lines marring their photos. The issue is so well-known among professional photographers that many use protective filters when shooting near lasers. Volvo, to its credit, warns owners explicitly: “Do not point a camera directly at the lidar.” But unless you’re scouring the manual, you might not know until it’s too late.
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