OnePlus has launched a new concept phone, and it is calling it the… OnePlus 8T Concept. Bragging rights? Well, the phone’s rear panel can change its color. Also, it looks fantastic. And before your inner geek screams “Hey OnePlus, take my money already”, there is some bad news. This is a concept device, and OnePlus has no intention of selling it commercially, just like the OnePlus Concept One that had fancy electrochromic glass for hiding the rear camera lenses.

Alright now, back to the star of the show here. As the name makes it abundantly clear, the device is based on the OnePlus 8T, so no fancy upgrades inside. Let’s talk about the design first. The OnePlus 8T Concept has a quasi-wavy quasi-flowery pattern on the back that is inspired by “flowing water in the hot springs of Pamukkale” in Turkey. To achieve the color-changing trick, OnePlus is relying on what it calls “Electronic Color, Material and Finish” (ECMF)”, an electronic take on its CMF philosophy for designing smartphones. As for the actual color change, the rear panel goes from dark blue to light silver.

The OnePlus 8T Concept, in effect, breathes with you

So, how does the color change happen?

OnePlus says that it has applied a “color-changing film that contains metal oxide in glass, the valence state of the metal ions varying under different voltages.” So, whenever the voltage fluctuates, the rear panel changes its color. But there is more to it. OnePlus is relying on the mmWave technology to make the phone’s rear panel react and change color depending on activities such as incoming calls. Theoretically speaking, users will also be able to reject the calls without touching the OnePlus 8T Concept.

https://twitter.com/PeteLau/status/1341007494857056256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Wait, there’s more!

What is truly bonkers is that the mmWave module could somehow sync with your breathing and accordingly change the color of the rear panel in sync. OnePlus says that this implementation – assuming it can be commercialized – will make the OnePlus 8T Concept a “biofeedback device.” The company also notes that the “OnePlus 8T ECMF breathes with you.” No kidding!

Want to know more about the futuristic use case scenarios that the OnePlus 8T Concept brings? “The mmWave radar module transmits and receives electromagnetic waves. When receiving electromagnetic waves, the digital signal processing (DSP) and CPU perform signal and information processing, allowing the device to perceive, image, locate, and track objects,” adds OnePlus. If you turn the clock a few months back, Vivo also demonstrated a similar technology where the phone’s rear panel could change its hue way more drastically, but that technology is yet to appear on a commercially available smartphone.