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Some phones had near-IR camera (Pixel 4, Samsung S10) accessible via API. No "killer app" was found since then, 5+ years


iPhones also have a near-IR front camera, but that one is fully slaved to the FaceID system. Don't think anything in userland can access raw data from it.


There are lots of 3D scanning apps using "Face ID", like Heges: https://hege.sh/


Those rely on the depth maps, which can be accessed from userspace. But the depth maps are derived from IR camera footage, which is not accessible.

Ironically, older iPhones have better depth resolving capability overall. Apple sacrificed depth sensing performance in favor of smaller unit size in the newer ones.




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