Here’s What the LiDAR Scanner on Your iPhone and iPad Actually Does.
LiDAR isn’t really new tech. It’s used in a lot of cars now for backup sensors and other range sensing features. But since apple has put them on the iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro models, some of you might be curious as to what LiDAR does and how you can take advantage of it.
For those of you that don’t know, LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging, and it’s basically a sensor that emits light through rapidly firing lasers which reflect off of nearby objects. (Source: neonscience.org). When that light bounces off an object and returns to the sensor, the time it takes for the light to return to the sensor is recorded, and accurate measurement data can be extrapolated. It’s similar to how FaceID works on the front of the phone, except it’s effective at a longer range.
One big advantage of the new LiDAR Scanner is that portrait mode photos should be much more accurate, and it’s the reason why Apple is now letting us take portrait mode photos with night mode on the 12 pro. The LiDAR sensor emits its own light, so it can measure distance even if there isn’t much light around.
Keep in mind that the quality of the photo is still limited to how good the camera sensor and image processing software is though. The LiDAR Scanner can help with those portrait mode photos, but it isn’t going to improve the overall image quality of your shots.
It will improve the autofocus speed and accuracy in both photos and video though. Apple is claiming that the 12 Pro and Pro max will have up to 6 times faster autofocus in low light because of the inclusion of that LiDAR Scanner.
Another big use for the scanner is being able to accurately measure the size of objects with the measure app that comes preinstalled on the phone. The scanner has a limited range of around 5 or so meters, so you do need to be fairly close to the object to take advantage of LiDAR, but it seems a lot more accurate than the measure app on previous iPhones without LiDAR.
To see just how accurate it was, I measured several objects with a traditional tape measure and compared it to the measurements I got when using the measure app on the iPhone 12 pro.
The measure app actually gets pretty darn close to what I was getting with the tape measure. Sometimes it was a centimeter or two off, but sometimes it was bang on. I wouldn’t use this app to help me build a house or anything, but for estimating the size of objects for work that’s not accuracy critical, the measure app is super handy to have around.
It’ll also attempt to map out objects that are squares or rectangles in shape and give you the measurements for all sides all at once. Try doing that with a tape measure in 3 seconds.
The app can now measure your height too. You’ll need a tripod or a friend to help you with this one, but all you have to do is stand up next to a wall with your full body in view, and the app will attempt to accurately measure your height. And it works pretty darn well!
The LiDAR Scanner is also going to help out apps that run on Apple’s ARKIT. I’ve been getting a kick out of playing a few AR games like angry birds and AR Robot. The LiDAR Scanner makes AR objects MUCH more stable on the ground. The best way I can describe it is that they actually feel like they’re stuck to the surface and they feel more like they’re part of your actual environment.
You can move around your room and look at the objects up close and they’ll stay exactly where they’re supposed to. It’s a lot more fun than I was anticipating. It does kill the battery in the 12 Pro pretty quickly though, but that’s to be expected when it’s using the camera and LiDAR Scanner to track and show the environment as well as a lot of heavy processing from the A14 Bionic CPU to render the game in that environment.
There’s apps like Ikea Place too, where you can put one or more of Ikea’s furniture items in your room so that you can see what it’ll look like with your other furniture which is actually a lot more helpful than I thought. Unfortunately this also makes me about 10 times more likely to order furniture from Ikea, which is definitely the point of the app.
The Scanner is going to open up a lot of opportunities for apple in the future too. A lot of people are anticipating that the data that apple is collecting from the LiDAR scanners in the iPad Pro and iPhone 12 Pro models are going to help to create a better AR experience for the rumored Apple Glasses that are supposed to be coming within the next few years, so I’m pretty excited for that.
The LiDAR Scanner is very useful for certain things, but I wouldn’t call it essential. If you’re trying to decide between the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro, I wouldn’t let it be your deciding factor since there aren’t a whole lot of apps that take advantage of it right now. Either way though, it’s a cool piece of technology, and I’m glad the iPhone 12 Pro has one.