ELI5 Why flash is seen on phone camera but not to a naked eye, when key of a remote control is pressed

Question

ELI5 Why flash is seen on phone camera but not to a naked eye, when key of a remote control is pressed

In: Physics

Answer 1

As other people have said, remotes use infrared (IR) light (which is the same as visible light, just with a wavelength outside the range that humans can see) which phone cameras can detect. Humans eyes cannot detect it, but part of the software that displays what the camera sees to the screen (sort of) converts it to light that’s visible to humans. This is likely because phone screens can’t display infrared light (only visible light), but the software forces it to show SOMETHING from the camera.