OnePlus Showcases Its Wild Cryogenic-Cooled Concept Phone

OnePlus is trying to redefine the thermal cooling hardware that can be crammed inside a phone, and what better analog to achieve it than gaming PCs? The result of that endeavor is the OnePlus 11 Concept, a special version of the company's latest budget flagship, which stands out courtesy of eye-catching blue lines running across the rear panel. However, these cool blue lines aren't merely aesthetic additions, as they literally keep the phone cool. In OnePlus terminology, you are looking at a novel cooling system called Active CryoFlux. The custom thermal management array created by OnePlus engineers comprises a pair of piezoelectric micropumps linked to metallic pipelines.

These pipes, which serve the purpose of heat dissipation, are, in turn, placed between two diaphragms. Piezoelectric material produces electricity when pressure is applied. Inside the OnePlus 11 Concept, the piezoelectric micropump provides the electrical juice to move what OnePlus calls "icy cryogenic liquid" through those blue veins. The veins and the halo rings around the camera island light up when the cooling system kicks into action. The system is designed to start when the device reaches a specific temperature, but users can manually enable it using a custom "Engineer Mode."

OnePlus says the fluid movement through those bright blue channels carries heat produced by the phone's internals toward a heatsink. The whole setup is not too different from flagship Android phones, but instead of relying on a vapor chamber cooling system, OnePlus wants an icy liquid to do the job of heat dissipation. A vital advantage of the innovative cooling system is that OnePlus didn't have to struggle with making more space inside the phone's chassis to fit a larger thermal management kit. OnePlus claims to have equipped the piezoelectric micropumps within just 0.2 cubic centimeters of space.

The company claims it obtained over "30 patents for the fluid diaphragm" at the heart of the Active CryoFlux cooling technology. Regarding efficiency figures, OnePlus is touting a temperature drop of 2.1 degrees celsius with the CryoFlux system, amounting to a boost of 3-4 frames per second in mobile games. However, the improved heat management will also be beneficial in other demanding scenarios, such as high-resolution video capture. Thankfully, OnePlus has promised to bring the cool thermal management tech to commercially available smartphones soon.