Huawei Technologies' smartphone sub-brand, Honor, has released a new device that may come in handy in this post-pandemic world. The new smartphone, dubbed the Honor Play 4, features a built-in thermal scanner that can measure people's body temperature via infra-red.
The integration of the unique feature is a first for any smartphone manufacturer and timely given the current global state. Huawei has announced that it will be releasing the new smartphone in China. The company has yet to reveal if it plans to release the new model in other countries. The smartphone will come in two different variants, namely the Honor Play 4 and the Honor Play 4 Pro.
In a post on Honor's official Weibo account, the company stated that users will be able to take a temperature reading just by placing the phone near people's wrists and foreheads. The built-in infra-red temperature scanner can record readings of between minus 20 and 100 degrees Celsius and is accurate to about a tenth of a degree. The range is more than enough to detect if a person has a fever, a feature that may come in handy for first responders and frontline workers trying to identitfy people experiencing covid-19 symptoms.
Modern flagship smartphones already do utilize infra-red scanners. However, their use has mostly been relegated to features such as Apple's FaceID facial recognition and OnePlus 8 Pro's IR camera. Huawei's decision to repurpose the sensor to detect temperatures is certainly novel and other manufacturers are likely going to follow suit in the wake of the pandemic. Huawei could also introduce the same feature on its own high-end models sometime in the future.
As for its technical specifications, the new smartphone model is similar to other mid-range Android devices, sporting mid to high-range components and capabilities. The devices both sport a Kirin 990 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. Similar to Huawei's latest offerings, the new model will be 5G compatible. Huawei initially established its Honor sub-brand in 2011, as a way to differentiate its low to mid-end models. Since then, the brand has grown to be recognized in the global market, with models competing against mid-range offerings from manufacturers such as Samsung and Xiaomi.
Both devices will come with the Android 10 operating system out of the box, but it is unlikely that they will have access to Google-based apps. Huawei does have its own app gallery and most of the services from Google can be loaded through other means. The Honor Play 4 is currently being sold in China for around 2,999 yuan or roughly $420. The "pro" model is currently retailers at about $10 more than the standard version.
