There seems to be little to no regard for, or even a broader conversation about, personal privacy, as the market is flooded with smart glasses. The technology seems like it will get an equal amount of use from cool, innovative content creators as it will from creeps and losers using the tech explicitly to harass and endanger people.
Thankfully, as the technology becomes more prominent and regulatory safeguards languish, a German sociology professor has built a tool designed to fight back by making people aware that there are smart classes in their immediate area.
As Joe Wilkins of Futurism points out, Yves Jeanrenaud, chair of sociology and gender studies at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, has developed Nearby Glasses, a free, open-source Android app that detects smart glasses in the user’s vicinity.
The app doesn’t identify who is wearing the device, but it scans for Bluetooth SIG-assigned numbers (the unique identifiers required for Bluetooth-enabled products) and flags brands associated with smart eyewear.
This App Detects If Any Smart Glasses are Nearby
In open spaces, the detection range can stretch roughly 30 to 50 feet, and it narrows indoors. It’s not precise surveillance of the surveillers, but it’s enough to raise awareness that someone nearby may be recording, so you can be on your guard.
Jeanrenaud told Futurism his concerns are rooted in years of studying digital abuse and power dynamics. Covert recording, he argues, is about control. When companies like Meta Platforms revived the smart-glasses concept, it signaled a future where discreet cameras could become normalized.
Cameras in your glasses, once the stuff of deceit and trickery, a tool of fictional spies, hidden-camera pranksters, and consumer-advocacy news reports, have become a technology people wear in their day-to-day lives. The normalization of spy tech, a phenomenon that you can wear on your face, hang on your front door with your Ring camera, or see peering at you from a post in your town with a Flock camera.
Nearby Glasses works because Bluetooth identifiers are mandatory. But the method has limits. Since the codes map to manufacturers rather than specific devices, false positives are possible. Meta also produces VR headsets, meaning a headset could theoretically be mistaken for eyewear. Jeanrenaud acknowledges the imperfections. He says his prototype took only hours to build, and the app remains in early stages with limited real-world testing.
Still, its existence sadly reflects a growing, broader need in a world where many are gleefully giving up privacy to be early adopters and cutting-edge tech. If someone wants to infuse life’s day-to-day mundane moments with a under current of anxiety about whether or not those chunky glasses are recording you, then someone else, quite naturally, will have to figure out a way to nullify it.
In the absence of clear regulation, Nearby Glasses represents a small act of resistance.
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