Which iPhones have LiDAR, and what is it for?

Updated October 3, 2026 by Kamal Nasir

Every iPhone Pro and Pro Max from the iPhone 12 Pro onward has a LiDAR scanner, up to and including the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. iPhones without Pro in the name do not. The scanner measures distance with its own invisible light, so it keeps working in a completely dark room, out to about 5 meters.

The iPhones with a LiDAR scanner

LiDAR came to the iPhone with the iPhone 12 Pro in 2020 and has been on every Pro model since:

• iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max
• iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max
• iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max
• iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max
• iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max
• iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max

Which iPhones do not have it

The standard, mini, Plus, e and Air models have no LiDAR scanner. Apple's current technical specifications list a LiDAR Scanner under sensors for the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max and none for the iPhone 17, iPhone Air or iPhone 16e. On iPad, the scanner arrived with the iPad Pro in March 2020.

To check your own phone, open Settings, then General, then About, and read the model name. On the back, the scanner is the small dark circle in the camera bump beside the lenses.

Kamera Pro: LiDAR Night Vision

Night vision camera with a LiDAR lens

Get it on the App StoreAbout the app

What LiDAR is and how it works

LiDAR stands for light detection and ranging. The scanner fires pulses of infrared light that the eye cannot see and times how long each one takes to bounce back. Light travels at a known speed, so the delay gives the distance. Apple describes its scanner as operating at the photon level at nanosecond speeds and measuring the distance to surrounding objects up to 5 meters away, indoors and outdoors.

The result is a depth map: a grid of distances covering whatever the phone is pointed at. It is coarse next to a photo, so it shows the shape of a room, furniture and people rather than texture, colour or writing.

What the iPhone uses LiDAR for

• Faster autofocus in dim light. Apple says the scanner improves autofocus by 6x in low-light scenes.
• Night mode portraits, which use depth to blur the background in low light.
• Augmented reality, which Apple says becomes faster and more realistic with the scanner, so apps can place virtual objects on real floors and tables.
• Measuring and 3D scanning, where apps use the depth data to measure rooms and objects or capture 3D models.

Does iPhone LiDAR work in the dark?

Yes. The cameras need light, but the LiDAR scanner brings its own, so darkness does not shorten its reach. The catch is that iOS never shows you the depth map directly. The Camera app uses it quietly for focus and portraits, and Apple's Measure app works through the camera, which Apple says is designed for objects 0.5 to 3 meters away, so it needs enough light to see what it is measuring.

To actually see a dark room through LiDAR you need an app that draws the depth data on screen. Kamera Pro's LiDAR lens is one: on Pro model iPhones it draws the room as measured distance with no light at all, and you can tap two points to read the distance between them in meters or feet, out to about 5 meters.

Limits worth knowing

• Range is about 5 meters, so it maps a room, not a garden or a street.
• It sees shape, not identity: you can tell that someone is standing in a doorway, not who it is.
• Glass, mirrors and very shiny surfaces can return a weak or confusing signal, which shows up as gaps or wrong distances.
• It is on the back of the phone only. The front TrueDepth system also uses infrared light, but it is built for a face at arm's length.

Questions people ask

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