On: Turning a MacBook into a Touchscreen with $1 of Ha...

[mbreese]

Maybe you could add an IR LED that could be observed by the webcam, but not in the visible spectrum. I’m not sure if the MacBook webcam includes an IR filter or not. It wouldn't help the precision, but might make the camera less susceptible to changes in ambient light.

[tigershark → mbreese]

Even 5$ webcam include a IR filter, the image quality without is pretty awful, so I’m pretty sure that apple webcams have it.

[kevinsundar → tigershark]

I recently shined a remote control into my late 2013 macbook pro's camera and I totally saw the ir light. Not saying that you're wrong, I don't know if there are filters but only for certain specific wavelengths or something like that.

[mkl → kevinsundar]

Remote controls are pretty bright IR, so it could be just that it only blocks up to a certain brightness.

[kevinsundar → mkl]

Makes sense. Direct IR light is probably harder to block.

[tigershark → kevinsundar]

Even in my webcam before removing the IR filter I could see the faint remote light if pointing directly at it. After removing the ir filter I could literally see in a room without lights just lit by the remote.