New App Detects Meta Smart Glasses Nearby Before They Detect You
A free app called ZuckOff, created by a Polish developer, uses Bluetooth signals to detect nearby Meta and other smart glasses. It has gained traction amid growing concerns over covert filming.
A 30-year-old Polish developer named Pawel Szydlowski has built a free mobile app called ZuckOff that uses Bluetooth detection to tell users whether a pair of smart glasses is present in their vicinity. Since launching in August, the app has reportedly been downloaded more than 5,000 times on Apple's App Store and around 1,000 times on Google Play.
To build the app, Szydlowski purchased several smart glasses models and recorded the unique Bluetooth signals they broadcast, creating a digital fingerprint tied to each manufacturer's identifier. This allows ZuckOff to flag devices such as Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta, and Snap Spectacles when they are nearby.
Growing concerns over covert recording
Meta's smart glasses have faced increasing scrutiny over the possibility of filming people without consent, with some users reportedly wearing them on dates. A growing number of venues, including schools and cinemas, have begun banning the devices outright. A BBC investigation in January identified dozens of accounts sharing footage of women filmed in public without their knowledge; one video, which showed a 21-year-old woman's face and phone number, received more than 1.3 million views. The glasses' recording indicator light has proven relatively easy to bypass using simple hardware modifications. Around 7 million pairs of Meta smart glasses were sold in 2025.
In July, Meta announced an upcoming update designed to detect when the recording light has been physically tampered with or destroyed, disabling the camera in such cases.
ZuckOff cannot determine whether glasses nearby are actively recording, nor identify who is wearing them — it only measures signal strength to estimate rough proximity. The app's basic scanning feature is free, while a paid ZuckOff Pro version, priced at $25, adds history logging, data export, and continuous background monitoring.
