Google Pixel 8 Pro

Google Pixel 8 Pro breaks cover with built-in temperature sensor [Video]

Ben Schoon | May 18 2023 - 6:21 am PT

Last week just brought us the debut of two new Pixels, but unlike the I/O before there was no tease of what’s to come. We’ve already seen Google’s upcoming Pixel 8 Pro through renders, but now the phone has leaked live with what’s claimed to be a temperature sensor built in.

Leaker Kuba Wojciechowski and 91Mobiles published what is the first-real life image of the Pixel 8 Pro. The image shows a white version of the phone with a similar look to the Pixel 7 series. There’s a sizeable silver camera module, this time with a larger overall cutout for the three camera lenses.

But what’s notable here is the added sensor off to the right side of those cameras.

This new sensor was first seen in a previous leak, but there was no word at the time on what it would actually do. At the time, most expected it to be a LIDAR sensor.

Google seems to have other plans, though.

In a brief video, we can see that this new sensor on Pixel 8 Pro is actually an infrared temperature sensor. The sensor, which works much like the contactless thermometers we’ve become familiar with after living through the worst of COVID-19, is used to read your body temperature.

The video shows that this is done starting at the forehead and moving toward the temple, as close to the skin as possible without touching it. The whole process takes about five seconds, and then a result is shown. Apparently, the sensor will also be able to read the temperature of other objects. Data is apparently stored locally and processed in Android’s Private Compute Core. Googlers are allegedly testing the feature already, too, which is presumably why the video below exists in the first place.

https://youtu.be/n4b3tiaWIXs

It’s a… unique use, and we’ll be curious to see how Google uses this data in Fitbit, as well as what other use cases come out of the sensor. It doesn’t appear to be enough to double as a thermal camera, so the use cases here seem a bit limited, which is surprising for a brand-new, dedicated sensor on the device.

This temperature sensor is expected to be exclusive to Pixel 8 Pro, not showing up on the lesser Pixel 8. Google’s next batch of Pixels is also expected to run on a new Tensor G3 chip and, with the Pro, ditch the curved display.