Camera AI glasses
Oakley Meta (HSTN and Vanguard)
Meta Platforms / EssilorLuxottica
Detection: Researching Not yet independently tested
- Camera
- Yes
- Microphone
- Yes
- Capture light
- Yes
iPhone app · in development
Know When Smart Glasses Are Nearby
Smart Glasses Scanner listens for Bluetooth Low Energy advertisements around your iPhone, compares them with a catalogue of researched signatures, and shows you exactly which evidence matched. Awareness without alarmism: it tells you what was observed and how sure it is, and it is honest about what it cannot know.
No hardware validation results have been published yet. Every device in our database is marked Researching or Unknown; none is verified. See the testing status.
How it works
1 · Scan
Listen for advertisements
Bluetooth Low Energy devices announce themselves with short broadcast packets. iOS hands the app a small, fixed set of fields from each one: a name (if any), manufacturer data, service identifiers and a signal strength. Nothing is connected to and nothing is sent anywhere.
2 · Match
Compare with researched signatures
Each packet is normalised and compared with a catalogue of signatures. Every signature carries its source: a Bluetooth SIG registration, a public write-up, or, once we have it, our own hardware test. Community leads are kept separate from tested facts.
3 · Understand
See the evidence and its limits
A detection lists the evidence that matched and a confidence level that only rises when independent kinds of evidence agree. A single shared identifier can never reach a high level on its own.
What a detection means — and does not mean
A detection means
- Your iPhone received a Bluetooth Low Energy advertisement whose contents matched one or more entries in our signature catalogue.
- Each piece of evidence (a company identifier, a service UUID, a name pattern) is shown with its source, so you can judge it yourself.
- The confidence level reflects how many independent kinds of evidence agreed, not how sure we are that a camera is in use.
A detection does not mean
- That anyone is recording. Bluetooth advertisements carry no information about camera or microphone activity.
- That the matched device is definitely smart glasses. Manufacturers reuse identifiers across products; see false positives.
- That the device is a particular distance away. Signal strength is a coarse proximity hint; see RSSI and distance.
Equally, no detection does not mean no smart glasses are present. Some glasses may advertise nothing while connected to their owner's phone, and iOS limits what a scanning app can observe, especially in the background. Read what iOS lets a Bluetooth scanner do.
Device database
Sourced facts about each product's camera, microphones and capture light, the Bluetooth identifiers we are researching, and an honest detection status. Nothing is listed as verified yet.
Camera AI glasses
Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 1 and Gen 2)
Meta Platforms / EssilorLuxottica
Detection: Researching Testing in progress
- Camera
- Yes
- Microphone
- Yes
- Capture light
- Yes
AR display glasses (with cameras)
Snap Spectacles (5th generation) and Specs
Snap Inc.
Detection: Researching Not yet independently tested
- Camera
- Yes
- Microphone
- Yes
- Capture light
- Unknown
How accurate is it?
We do not know yet, and we will not publish a number until we have measured one. Three limits are fixed by physics and by iOS, and no app can remove them:
- Some glasses may advertise nothing while worn. A device that is paired and connected to its owner's phone can stay silent. Whether the products we study do this is the first question in our validation plan.
- Identifiers are shared across products. A company identifier registered to a manufacturer may appear on headsets, controllers, earbuds and glasses alike. That is why company-ID-only matches are capped at a low confidence level. See false positives and false negatives.
- iOS constrains background scanning. Apple documents that background scans require a service-UUID filter, coalesce repeated discoveries and run at a slower interval. See what iOS lets a Bluetooth scanner do.
Who is asking about this
Teachers and schools
Camera glasses look like ordinary eyewear, and schools are working out how existing device policies apply. Our teacher guide explains what the products can do, how to recognise them, and what a Bluetooth scanner can and cannot determine.
Read the guide for teachers →Anyone who wants evidence, not guesswork
Gyms, clinics, workplaces, and people who simply want to understand the technology. The research section is written for readers who want the primary sources and the reasoning, not a verdict.
Browse the research →Research
- How Bluetooth detection works — The scan, normalise, match and score pipeline; why a single identifier can never reach high confidence.
- Where signatures come from — Provenance rules for every identifier in the catalogue, what the Bluetooth SIG registry proves, and what it does not.
- What iOS lets a Bluetooth scanner do — Apple-documented rules for foreground and background scanning, coalescing, relaunch behaviour and the eight advertisement keys.
- False positives and false negatives — Why company identifiers are shared across products, what that does to scoring, and how we plan to measure it.
- RSSI, proximity and distance — What signal strength can and cannot tell you, and why the app will never show metres.
- Testing results — No results published yet. The protocol, what will be published, and the criteria for publishing it.
In development
Smart Glasses Scanner for iPhone — Coming Soon
The app is not available yet. Leave your email and we will send one message when it launches, and at most a handful of research updates before then. No marketing list, no sharing, unsubscribe in one click.