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Hardware Compatibility

Visage works with USB UVC IR cameras — IR cameras that appear as standard V4L2 devices under the uvcvideo kernel driver. The key question for any laptop is: which kernel driver handles its IR camera?

Run visage discover to get the answer for your machine.

Quick reference

Camera stack visage discover output Visage support
USB UVC IR driver=uvcvideo plus an IR node/format or known emitter quirk ✅ Supported
USB UVC RGB-only driver=uvcvideo, but only a normal webcam stream ❌ Not secure-compatible
Intel IPU6 driver=intel_ipu6* ❌ Not supported (v0.1)
MIPI / libcamera varies ❌ Not supported (v0.1)

Laptop compatibility tiers

Tier 1 — Well-supported (UVC IR, active community, Howdy history)

Brand / Line IR camera Linux driver Notes
Lenovo ThinkPad T/X/L/P series (pre-Gen 11) Optional uvcvideo Separate USB IR node alongside RGB webcam. T14, T14s, X1 Carbon Gen 6–10 frequently reported working with Howdy. Verify node with visage discover.
HP EliteBook 8xx G8+ Optional uvcvideo IR + presence detection on many SKUs. UVC-based on tested G8/G9 configs. Newer "AI PC" models may shift to IPU6.
ASUS ZenBook (UX series, ZenBook 14) Yes (most SKUs) uvcvideo Reference hardware for Visage — ZenBook 14 UM3406HA tested end-to-end.
TUXEDO InfinityBook, Pulse Some SKUs uvcvideo Linux-first OEM; users have reported Howdy working on IR-equipped configs.

Tier 2 — Likely supported but more variable

Brand / Line IR camera Linux driver Notes
Dell Latitude 5x30, 5x40, 7x20 Optional uvcvideo (older) / intel_ipu6 (newer) Ubuntu-certified fleet laptops. UVC IR works on pre-2023 gens. 2023+ may use IPU6 — verify with visage discover.
Lenovo ThinkPad Gen 11+ Optional Often intel_ipu6 Many Gen 11 models switched the integrated camera stack to IPU6. A separate USB IR sensor may still appear under uvcvideo — check all /dev/video* nodes.

Tier 3 — No IR camera (Visage not applicable)

Brand / Line Notes
ASUS ExpertBook B3302FEA/B5302FEA Built-in Azurewave/IMC 13d3:56ea camera is RGB-only UVC on tested hardware: /dev/video0 captures MJPG/YUYV and /dev/video1 is metadata only. No IR node, IR pixel format, Microsoft face-auth XU, or known emitter quirk was found. See hardware report.
Framework 13 / 16 Fingerprint only. No IR camera.
System76 (all models) Standard RGB webcam only.
Purism Librem Privacy-focused; standard webcam with kill switch.

Tier 4 — IR camera present but not supported

Brand / Line IR camera Linux driver Notes
Dell XPS 15/16 (2023+) Yes intel_ipu6 IPU6 camera stack. Even the RGB webcam may not work on Linux without distro-specific libcamera support.
Microsoft Surface (all lines) Yes Custom HAL Requires linux-surface kernel patches + libcamera. IR via PAM not practical in v0.1.

How to identify your camera stack

# List all /dev/video* devices with driver and quirk status
visage discover

A UVC IR camera looks like:

/dev/video2  driver=uvcvideo  VID=0x04f2 PID=0xb6d9  quirk: ASUS Zenbook 14 UM3406HA IR Camera ✓

A UVC RGB-only camera is not enough for secure Visage auth, even though the kernel driver is supported:

/dev/video0  driver=uvcvideo  VID=0x13d3 PID=0x56ea  no quirk (VID=0x13d3 PID=0x56ea)

An IPU6 camera looks like:

/dev/video0  driver=intel_ipu6_imx_phy  [NOT SUPPORTED — IPU6 camera, not UVC]

If your IR camera appears as driver=uvcvideo but has no quirk, it may still work for enrollment and verification — the quirk is only needed for IR emitter activation. However, uvcvideo alone is not sufficient: a laptop that exposes only a normal RGB webcam stream is not compatible with Visage's intended secure authentication path. Check for a separate IR node, an IR-oriented pixel format (GREY/Y16), or a documented emitter quirk before enabling PAM auth. You can test without emitter support and contribute emitter bytes later via contrib/hw/.

IR emitter support

Some UVC IR cameras require a specific control byte sequence sent to the camera's UVC extension unit to power on the IR emitter. Without it, frames will be dark (the IR camera captures IR light, but none is being emitted).

Visage includes built-in emitter control with no external dependencies. There is no need for linux-enable-ir-emitter. The quirk database at contrib/hw/ maps USB VID:PID to the correct control bytes for each known device.

Current quirk entries:

Device VID:PID Status
ASUS Zenbook 14 UM3406HA 04f2:b6d9 ✅ Verified on hardware

Contributing a quirk for your camera:

  1. Run visage discover to find your camera's VID:PID
  2. Use linux-enable-ir-emitter configure or UVC descriptor analysis to find the control bytes (see contrib/hw/README.md)
  3. Create contrib/hw/{vid}-{pid}.toml and submit a PR

IPU6 support timeline

Intel IPU6 cameras are on the v0.3 roadmap. Supporting them requires libcamera integration rather than direct V4L2 capture, which is a substantial architectural addition. The primary blockers are:

  • Stable libcamera Rust bindings
  • Per-distro libcamera packaging consistency (Ubuntu LTS vs Fedora vs Arch)
  • Testing infrastructure for IPU6 hardware

If you have an IPU6 laptop and want to contribute, open an issue on GitHub to discuss the approach.