Nearby Glasses(github.com)
177 points by zingerlio 5 hours ago | 19 comments
fusslo 3 hours ago
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meta-trial-mark-zuckerberg-ai-g...

> Judge Carolyn Kuhl, who is presiding over the trial, ordered anyone in the courtroom wearing AI glasses to immediately remove them, noting that any use of facial recognition technology to identify the jurors was banned.

I am not a believer in Zuckerberg's idea of humanity's future.

Refreeze5224 2 hours ago
That's because you are intentionally not included in it. Only him and his rich owning class buddies are, the rest of us are only profit-generating NPCs.
tosapple 7 minutes ago
[dead]
m0llusk 1 minute ago
So the bodycam that I have because of threats to my person is okay and somehow different?
cpeterso 3 hours ago
Can the app run on smart glasses, warning you of other smart glasses users nearby? You might not see the notification on your phone.
piskov 1 hour ago
That would be like antropic and google crying about china stealing the weights that were originally built by scraping as fuck stolen content :-)
serf 1 hour ago
> That would be like antropic and google crying about china stealing the weights that were originally built by scraping as fuck stolen content :-)

do you really see a relation between the two, or are you just willfully 'buying an advertisement' by trying to shape a metaphor from the social qualms that you wish to rebroadcast to people?

in other words, no -- this isn't at all similar to the companies that steal media in order to train models only to complain about similar theft from other companies targetted towards them -- but I agree with the motivation, fuck em; they're crooks...

but don't weaken metaphors simply to advertise a social injustice. If you want to do that, don't hijack conversations abroad.

piskov 35 minutes ago
Well, at least Chinese paid for api access and all the tokens.
pavel_lishin 1 hour ago
"Glasses detected within 3 inches."
burkaman 4 hours ago
Tried this on a Pixel 9, after allowing permissions the Start Scanning button does nothing, and there's nothing in the debug log. I do like the idea and might try again in the future if it gets updated. Seems like a good candidate for F-Droid instead of Google Play.
zoklet-enjoyer 12 minutes ago
I'm having the same problem on a Pixel 7
Morizero 2 hours ago
I had to tap the sprocket in the top right and enable Foreground Service to get the button to work
crustaceansoup 2 hours ago
On my Pixel 9 this overlaps the status bar, and can't be clicked. I worked around that by split-screening it with another app.
dec0dedab0de 3 hours ago
This is really neat, I gotta find an android device to try it. Reminds me of the good old days of wardriving with kismet and netstumbler.

I am surprised there isn't an existing BT/BTLE fingerprint table that takes more into account than just what is provided. I would assume each device, or atleast each chipset has subtle quirks that could be used to weed out some of the false positives.

the link in the readme for the identifiers doesn't work because it's relative to the repo, so it is below. I like that they did this, it's so much better than the OUI table for mac addresses, because some companies (cough cisco) keep getting new ones.

https://bitbucket.org/bluetooth-SIG/public/src/main/assigned...

hedayet 24 minutes ago
Projects like this are useful not only for identifying creeps nearby, but also for highlighting a broader issue: once AI glasses become common, everyone nearby becomes part of the experiment.

I recently switched away from my usual brand when they started shipping AI-enabled glasses. That was my small way of opting out.

catoc 1 hour ago
Would renaming to ”Nearby Glassholes” be acceptable as a PR?
micw 32 minutes ago
Give it a try ^^
bryanlarsen 2 hours ago
Currently detects via Meta, Essilor or Snap company ID.

So it won't detect my XReal's. I purposefully bought my XReal now because it feels like they might be one of the last models released without cameras.

But theoretically I could have the XReal Eye attachment on my glasses, and could be taking video through that. I don't, but the XReal user next to me might.

Of course the USB wire hanging from my ear probably makes me look suspicious enough already that the warning probably isn't necessary either way...

nomel 8 minutes ago
Looking at this almost unanimously negative comment section, on a tech website, it appears you should be concerned about your safety while wearing anything that could be seen as being "smart". I imagine a non-tech crowd would be even more negative.

> for identifying creeps nearby

> I recently had to interact with an idiot wearing meta glasses.

> Would renaming to ”Nearby Glassholes” be acceptable as a PR?

> If you're wearing these glasses and recording people in public, you're asking for a sweet punch in the face.

btbuildem 2 hours ago
Sooo technically this is on the edge of legal/not legal, depending on your intent and what the judge had for lunch that day. ID'ing devices without consent is a grey area at best.
magicalist 1 hour ago
> Sooo technically this is on the edge of legal/not legal, depending on your intent and what the judge had for lunch that day. ID'ing devices without consent is a grey area at best.

It's looking at the BLE advertising packets that they send out to everybody. The only thing stored is manufacturer ID, not a device ID (which you wouldn't be able to get anyways).

You might as well try to press charges against Apple or Google for putting readable names for nearby devices that aren't yours in the bluetooth pairing screen.

davidee 2 hours ago
Filming/video and lookups of people filtered through a corporate data mining operation without their consent should also be illegal. I'll take my chances, thank you.

I recently had to interact with an idiot wearing meta glasses. There should be a mandatory consent requirement AND an "on air" red led.

leephillips 2 hours ago
Do you mean in the courtroom or anywhere? Because filming and photographing people in public is legal everywhere in the U.S., and no consent is required.
magicalist 1 hour ago
> Do you mean in the courtroom or anywhere? Because filming and photographing people in public is legal everywhere in the U.S., and no consent is required.

First, note that "filming" in public is not necessarily legal in every state if you include recording audio of conversations you're not party to.

Second, the GP said should be illegal without consent, so clearly was talking about what's they consider right, not necessarily what is.

But most importantly, "filming and photographing people in public" is also obviously not what the GP was talking about. They said:

> Filming/video and lookups of people filtered through a corporate data mining operation without their consent should also be illegal.

And, actually, extracting biometrics from video of people and tracking them/data mining them without consent is in fact not legal in several states already, and potentially federal law, depending on what they do.

NoahZuniga 1 hour ago
> judge had for lunch

This would be a criminal matter, so a jury would have to decide if you're guilty. I feel like you'd have a hard time convincing 12 jurors that you're doing something wrong here.

cloudfudge 2 hours ago
I'd probably go for "the device explicitly allowed itself to be ID'd by intentionally broadcasting a signal intended for this purpose."
IncreasePosts 45 minutes ago
What region has laws that you're not allowed to look at a packet that was broadcast from a device? This sounds prima facie absurd, but I know a lot of strange laws exist out there.
pluralmonad 2 hours ago
Is this legal advice?
driverdan 1 hour ago
[citation needed]
mrbluecoat 3 hours ago
Add satellite imagery, nearby self-driving vehicles / Google maps cars, line-of-sight ring doorbells, peripheral street surveillance cameras, police equipment, people in your proximity with a smartphone camera, and various-purpose drones and then you'll have the perfect paranoia alerter.
nickorlow 2 hours ago
A big red screen that always says "yes"?
p_ing 3 hours ago
The dichotomy between the statement in the repo "False positives are likely" and the app message "Smart Glasses are probably nearby" is interesting.
burkaman 3 hours ago
I don't think those are contradictory. Say each notification has a 90% chance of being true, so it's reasonable to say "probably". After 10+ notifications, each of which was individually probable, it is still very likely that at least one of them was a false positive.
catoc 1 hour ago
“When using the app you are likely to experience false positives, and when the app alerts you, smart glasses are probably nearby.”

Nothing contradictory there.

Even “…when the app alerts you, smart glasses are likely nearby” might be reasonable.

mathfailure 2 hours ago
That's not a dichotomy.
scotty79 1 hour ago
toomuchtodo 4 hours ago
paul7986 3 hours ago
Bought my first pair of Meta glasses in Oct 2023 and overall I really enjoying using smart glasses! They are great for quickly/easily capturing life experiences. Also, while traveling or wherever asking and getting information on things your looking at - it's cool & useful. Tho Meta makes trash as my 1st pair died after 14 months of use after a software update and then my 2nd pair only lasted 4 months after some water splashes. I called Ray Ban for tech support and the lady on the phone agreed they are trash per how many calls she gets.

I don't care to take pics of strangers tho lots of people who havent adopted them are concerned about such.

Overall no more Meta glasses for me Im waiting for Apple's. They have tons of stores to get your glasses fixed and they don't manufacture trash that breaks! Also, maybe Apple will add a privacy feature so your pics and vids anonymize faces not in your personal network.

arjie 2 hours ago
Do you have children? I frequently want to record things my daughter does but I find that my phone is not close at hand. I am curious if the latency to record is low-enough and I don't want to distract my daughter while she's doing whatever she's doing. I just want to capture the moment for later without interrupting the moment. They advertise it as this but I am curious what it's like in actuality.
paul7986 13 minutes ago
They are great just for that and many instances you want to quickly take a pic and not interupt a moment.
cole-k 3 hours ago
Are you making a counterpoint to the author's premise that smart glasses are an "intolerable intrusion?"

I'm having trouble understanding the purpose of your comment since it seems like you're just saying the ray ban glasses are bad for a different reason.

paul7986 3 hours ago
I love smart glasses they are very useful for people who wear sunglasses and use their phone to take pics & videos.

Of course with all new technology people fight against it. When I wore them on rollercoasters at Cedar Point in 2024 ride attendees said take those off and store them in a locker at the front entrance of the park (that kid / ride attendant hated them). Yet as Feb 2026 Six flags now allows smart glasses to be worn thru all its parks and 7 million have been sold.

Overall I am detailing why they are useful, why I think they will be widely adopted and like many technologies before it those who are against them will adopt them too(its a counter argument here). Sure some creeps will use them and with that in mind Apple has the possible ability to solve that privacy issue as they are a privacy company (all pics and vids taken thru APple glasses faces not in your network are randomize/anonymized).

paul7986 2 hours ago
Also noting my disdain for Meta glasses due to their lack of quality and solid customer service Apple will provide.
tamimio 3 hours ago
Need an iOS.

But I think very soon the whole detection won’t be enough, because most people will have glasses, phones, CCTV, etc., I think the best is protecting yourself, so a cloak mask or similar, where for humans it’s barely visible but for machines it blocks you from being scanned or recorded.

luxuryballs 3 hours ago
an invisibility cloak! crazy times, maybe we can make anti-smart-glasses glasses that detect smart glasses and have an invisible beam that can target and blind the cameras
tamimio 2 hours ago
> anti-smart-glasses glasses that detect smart glasses and have an invisible beam that can target and blind the cameras

I love it! I literally thought of something similar while writing the above comment, something like an EMP that disables all nearby camera sensors for 10min or so.

luxuryballs 2 hours ago
I’m thinking it could be active enough to actually obscure the camera recording in real time whenever you are in the frame, like an actual beam that goes into the camera lens making the normal light intake all distorted, so it wouldn’t appear to malfunction or fail, it would just be like a refracting smudge in the feed.
tamimio 59 minutes ago
I know these below existed, but it only works against IR enabled cameras aka CCTV, but definitely they won’t against smart glasses, but I love your idea, a glass distort the lights, hmmm maybe emit IR?

https://www.reflectacles.com/order/ghost

LlamaTrauma 2 hours ago
umairnadeem123 2 hours ago
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strathmeyer 4 hours ago
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yunnpp 1 hour ago
If you're wearing these glasses and recording people in public, you're asking for a sweet punch in the face. I'm sure the little pieces of glass will look very nice inside your eyeballs.

Also, Mark Zuckerberg keeps making one socially disgusting product after another. Motherfucker should go bite some dust at this point.

tantalor 4 hours ago
I'm a bit torn on this because (at least in the sci-fi utopia stories) when a critical mass of people are recording full time then interpersonal crime and anti-social behavior is strongly discouraged. It's like an honor-based culture at scale.
emptybits 3 hours ago
> It's like an honor-based culture at scale.

Except the basis of that culture would not be honour, would it? A critical mass of people scrutinizing and reporting others' actions might lead to a compliance-based culture. It's different IMO. i.e. intrinsic motivation to behave well (honour, morality, decency) versus extrinsic motivation to behave well (fear of unpopularity, law enforcement, mob reaction, etc.)

hoten 37 minutes ago
Right. God help you in such a society if the power goes out.
pibaker 2 hours ago
It's like how people misunderstand trust. "I trust open source software because I can review the code." No you don't. If you need to review the code then you are already not trusting it. Same deal with "honor" — the entire point of honor is you don't need eyes everywhere to look for misbehavior. You trust people to do the right thing. There is no trust in a police state.
zephen 2 hours ago
I think you're missing the point. Or, on re-reading, the parent is missing the point.

"Honor culture" or "Culture of honor" is the term for people who are thin-skinned, quick to offense, and worried more about appearances than substance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_honor_(Southern_Uni...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing

It's all about a shame-based society. When someone is made to feel ashamed, they might lash out. It's practically the opposite of guilt, which is directed inwardly.

At the margins, a shamed person might commit mass murder, while a guilty person might commit suicide.

Before you get to the margin, both guilty people and shamed people might alter their behavior in beneficial ways, but they do it for subtly different reasons.

emptybits 1 hour ago
Thanks. I had to be reminded about that phrase "honor culture" and, yes, I've heard that definition before.

I was focused on how I think an "honourable person" behaves, which is ... IMO ... someone who behaves well regardless of whether or not someone is watching them. i.e. being guided by a personal moral compass, without cultural shame, guilt, government laws, religious conventions, or physical fear being primary motivators

But of course, if I adopt a religion's or legal system's idea of morality as my personal compass (certainly the easiest way to go, and easily installed in youth) ... then the distinction falls apart. Cheers.

zephen 1 hour ago
> But of course, if I adopt a religion's or legal system's idea of morality as my personal compass (certainly the easiest way to go, and easily installed in youth) ... then the distinction falls apart.

That's obviously part of it, but not the entirety of it. Guiding your own behavior is different than feeling compelled to also dictate others' behavior. Honor culture is usually putatively religious, yet is diametrically opposed to "judge not lest ye be judged."

To be fully immersed in it is to feel personally slighted by any perceived transgressions against the normal order of things, and to have zero sense of proportion about which things are truly harmful to all of us, and which things are simply not how we would do things or prefer things to be done.

pityJuke 3 hours ago
Yes look at this article showing all of the wonderful anti-social behaviour prevented by smart glasses: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx23ke7rm7go

(hint: smart glasses encourage anti social behaviour for online clout.)

burkaman 3 hours ago
Mass recording discourages social behavior, not anti-social behavior.
drawfloat 3 hours ago
Recording people going about their day is anti social behaviour.
AlecSchueler 3 hours ago
Would you consider East Germany a sort of social Utopia?
thomassmith65 3 hours ago
It will be a delight for anyone who ever wished there existed footage of every time they vomited in public or face-planted after tripping on a cobblestone.
roughly 4 hours ago
50 years ago anti-social behavior included homosexuality.
throwway120385 4 hours ago
Also included drinking from the fountain or sitting in seats or eating at a restaurant with people colored differently from you. I wonder what we're going to make "antisocial" in the next 50 years and whether or not we'll be punishing people for things we'll consider benign again in 75 years. The whole "let's surveil everything to stop all antisocial behaviors" might be going too far just like the idea that everyone should open carry to reduce crime.
tclancy 3 hours ago
Can you show your math on how an example of the opposite of what the person you are responding to you can also mean the same thing? Feel free to skip if you live in a non-Euclidian geometry, but the OP was saying such a thing would have been likely to get people killed in the past for violating a society's mores.
Etheryte 2 hours ago
Firstly, fear and honor are far from being the same thing. Second, we already have this in our society today via smartphones and things have not changed for the better. If anything, society is more torn than ever.
phoronixrly 3 hours ago
Which sci-fi utopia stories exactly are you referring to? Please remind me, because all the scifi with ubiquitous surveillace I recall are about dystopias instead.
morkalork 3 hours ago
Right, this is more like Black Mirror S1E3 "The Entire History of You"
tantalor 3 hours ago
I can't recall exactly but it may have been The Light of Other Days
r2_pilot 1 hour ago
I believe The Light of Other Days has slow-glass that you expose to a scene, it drinks it in, and then plays it back later.
bryanrasmussen 3 hours ago
from my recollection in most of the stories that is the primary starting point of the narrative but as the story goes along it turns out what you have is a dystopia, which is what it looks like we would actually get.
3 hours ago
jibal 3 hours ago
That's the opposite of honor-based, and those stories are warnings about going down that path.
zephen 2 hours ago
"Honor-based" has a specific meaning, and it is not good.

If the parent is torn about whether this is good or bad, they're really not paying attention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_honor_(Southern_Uni...

toomuchtodo 3 hours ago