diff --git a/src/libcamera/camera_sensor.cpp b/src/libcamera/camera_sensor.cpp
index c893b90979d8..55a9fbd71e69 100644
--- a/src/libcamera/camera_sensor.cpp
+++ b/src/libcamera/camera_sensor.cpp
@@ -163,6 +163,30 @@ int CameraSensor::init()
 	return 0;
 }
 
+/**
+ * \brief Retrieve the sensor model name
+ *
+ * The sensor model name is a free-formed string that uniquely identifies the
+ * sensor model.
+ *
+ * \return The sensor model name
+ */
+std::string CameraSensor::model() const
+{
+	/*
+	 * Extract the camera sensor model name from the media entity name.
+	 *
+	 * \todo There is no standardized naming scheme for sensor entities
+	 * in the Linux kernel at the moment. The most common naming scheme
+	 * is the one obtained by associating the sensor name and its I2C
+	 * device and bus addresses in the form of: "devname i2c-adapt:i2c-addr"
+	 * Assume this is the standard naming scheme and parse the first part
+	 * of the entity name to obtain "devname".
+	 */
+	std::string entityName = subdev_->entity()->name();
+	return entityName.substr(0, entityName.find(' '));
+}
+
 /**
  * \fn CameraSensor::entity()
  * \brief Retrieve the sensor media entity
diff --git a/src/libcamera/include/camera_sensor.h b/src/libcamera/include/camera_sensor.h
index 5277f7f7fe87..e68185370eb2 100644
--- a/src/libcamera/include/camera_sensor.h
+++ b/src/libcamera/include/camera_sensor.h
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ public:
 
 	int init();
 
+	std::string model() const;
 	const MediaEntity *entity() const { return entity_; }
 	const std::vector<unsigned int> &mbusCodes() const { return mbusCodes_; }
 	const std::vector<Size> &sizes() const { return sizes_; }