Google Pixel 4a - Rear Camera not working after removing front camera

Privacy Questions
1

Hi there,

I’ve just modded two google pixel 4a’s by removing their microphones and their rear cameras. The microphone is removed by de-soldering a little golden chip next to the charging port and that works great. There is another ANC-microphone next to the top camera that I have also removed. On top of that I have unplugged the front-facing camera. Now whenever I try to access my rear camera, my pixel doesnt detect any camera anymore. I have done this twice on two different pixels and always ran into the same result. I’m gonna open them up again and see if the rear camera maybe only works if the front camera is also plugged in.

Does anyone have experience on this?

2

The camera stack won’t initialize if it can’t find what it expects.

Next time just put tape on it.

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3

Yeah, I understand removing the microphone, but I never understood why one would remove the camera, when you can simply just cover it.

4

Because maybe the tape comes off without you realizing it or for an extra grain of privacy

5

What exactly are you trying to accomplish by removing such core functionality? If you are using a privacy respecting OS (i guess in android’s case a ROM), what is the concern?

1 Like