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ZuckOff Is a Free App That Sees Meta Glasses Before They See You

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Why This Matters

ZuckOff addresses growing privacy concerns around Meta's smart glasses by letting people detect nearby devices via Bluetooth fingerprinting, countering the ease with which recording indicators can be disabled. This reflects a broader public unease with covert recording as smart glasses adoption grows, prompting grassroots tech solutions to fill gaps left by manufacturers' privacy safeguards.

Key Takeaways
Worth a Look

Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses — Since this article centers on detecting Meta's smart glasses, it's worth checking out the actual device causing the buzz. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses combine classic styling with built-in camera and audio features, letting you experience firsthand the tech that's prompting privacy apps like ZuckOff.

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ZuckOff, a free Bluetooth detection app built by 30-year-old Polish developer Pawel Szydlowski, will tell you whether there is a pair of smart glasses in the room with you. In its launch month, it was reportedly downloaded by over 5,000 people on Apple’s App Store. As of writing, it had been downloaded 1,000 times on the Google Play Store.

Meta Is Charging a Subscription for Smart Glasses Features. Welcome to the New Era of Consumer Tech You bought the hardware. Now you’ll need to subscribe for “expanded access” to the most advanced features.

Meta’s smart glasses have had a hefty share of scrutiny over the past few months. Unsolicited filming is a growing public safety concern, with venues like schools and cinemas increasingly banning their usage outright.

Szydlowski recorded the Bluetooth signals broadcast by various models of smart glasses, building a digital fingerprint for each of them. He bought the hardware himself to compile the data that flags when a unique identifier matches up with a manufacturer identifier, catching models like Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta and Snap Spectacles in the vicinity.

A BBC investigation in January traced dozens of accounts that posted content filmed with Meta glasses, one of which posted a 21-year-old woman’s face and phone number, amassing over 1.3 million views.

The recording indicator light on these glasses have proven fairly easy to defeat with a bit of tape, allowing a growing number of wearers to record without being detected. Roughly seven million pairs of Meta’s smart glasses were sold in 2025.

In July, Meta announced that it would push an update to detect when an LED light has been “physically tampered with or destroyed” and stop people from being able to film using those cameras. In an Instagram video, Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth stated that they designed this camera to be noticed by the people around you. This is despite the fact that one of the product's key commercial propositions is that the camera doesn't look like a camera.