However, astrophotographers also complain about the price premium of monochrome camera. Given the same sensor, the monochrome version is typically 20% - 30% more expensive than the color version, which is counterintuitive - you don't need to put the Bayer filter on! So if we can perfect the technique to debayer color sensor, the astrophotographer community would be elated.
The market for monochrome sensors is very tiny compared to the rest of the commercial products. Every phone now has 2 or more cameras on it, and there are billions of those.
Any changes to the manufacturing steps means more setup and effort. Different test procedures, quality control, documentation, etc.. That is all overhead, to be absorbed by a relatively small production volume.
I'm surprised it is only a 30% premium, I'd have expected higher actually.
https://optcorp.com/products/zwo-asi6200mc-p - color $3999
https://optcorp.com/products/zwo-asi6200mm-p - mono $3799
I wonder how long until phone cameras are purely monochrome, and apply ML to add the "correct" color in post-processing.
Actually, wasn't there some phone a few years ago with one high-res black-and-white sensor and one low-res color sensor, and it combined them through some tricky to produce a sharp color image?