RealSense cameras are a fascinating technology from Intel. We’ve seen a number of interesting applications in the hacker world, from robots to smart devices. Unfortunately, Intel discontinued parts of the RealSense line at some point, particularly the LiDAR and face tracking models. Apparently they haven’t been popular, and we haven’t seen them in hacks either. Until now, that is. [Lina] brings us a real world application for RealSense face tracking cameras, FaceID application for Linux.
The project is as simple as it seems. if the built-in face recognition module of the camera recognizes you, your lock screen is unlocked. Since the target is Linux, it needs to connect to the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) subsystem for authentication, and of course there’s a PAM module for RealSense that’s worth mentioning. pam_sauron. This module is written in Zig, a modern C-like language, so it’s both a good example of how to build your own PAM integrations and a way to do it once in another language. As usual, there are TODOs like improving the UX and taking advantage of some of the security features that RealSense cameras have, but it’s still a fun and self-contained app for one of the F4XX series RealSense cameras if you happen to have one. :
Since the introduction of RealSense, we’ve seen these cameras used in robotics and 3D scanning, at least in part due to their ability to run on Linux. Fortunately, Intel only discontinued the lesser-known RealSense cameras, which didn’t affect the main RealSense lineup, and the hacker-favorite depth cameras are still available for all of our projects. Curious about the technology behind it? Here’s a breakdown of the RealSense camera module for laptop use.