The camera is disabled when people try to do this. Beginning with our second generation of glasses, the camera is automatically disabled if we detect that the capture LED has been blocked. No photos or videos can be taken until we detect that the light is unblocked.
Since the introduction of this safeguard, we’ve seen some people go beyond using tape to sophisticated efforts to modify or destroy the capture LED. We are continuously improving our ability to detect tampering, and now we’re updating the glasses to disable the camera if they detect the LED was physically tampered with or destroyed. No other kind of camera has done this and we’re proud to lead the industry forward.
The problem is the LED isn’t enabled currently when live streaming content to Instagram or Facebook. Most live streams can just be captured and recorded by someone else. This is a huge cap in privacy and safety even if the LED was fully functional without tampering.
Does everyone know when you're live streaming? Yes. A white LED on the front of the glasses lights up while you're streaming to let people around you know the camera is active.
Since the introduction of this safeguard, we’ve seen some people go beyond using tape to sophisticated efforts to modify or destroy the capture LED. We are continuously improving our ability to detect tampering, and now we’re updating the glasses to disable the camera if they detect the LED was physically tampered with or destroyed. No other kind of camera has done this and we’re proud to lead the industry forward.
Yes it's true people have figured out how to disable the safeguard, but we all agree the important thing as we try to sell millions more of these is that we tried, right?
These reactionary takes on HN suck. No, it's not easy for the average person to disable the camera on these glasses. They do continuously make it harder to do so. At this point anyone interested in spy glasses is better off buying one of the many other glasses with cameras in it.
I was, however had, quite surprised when I saw them used by "auditors" (here, I refer to e. g. "auditors" on youtube specifically). Now this brought a problem for me, because auditors on the one hand, bring interesting encounters, even if they (or some of them) meta-jabait and provoke (again, only some of them at best, in many cases they don't really). But when they use spy glasses to serve greedy mega-corporations, this totally shifts the whole "audit" instantly, because then they also support evil Facebook, Google or what not. And that kind of runs counter to the whole audit-idea. So far I only saw one use the facebook spy glasses, but I wonder whether he even gave any thought to this. I understand why he uses spy glasses, but I don't understand why he does it to benefit Facebook. That IMO puts the whole idea behind audits instantly in a wrong angle. I haven't seen others use it, so perhaps it just was one or few, but they don't seem to really think anymore. Some audit channels were also censored by Google in the last weeks, others were not, but this just amplifies the whole problem here. Imagine if the spy glasses were made by Google. And the auditors depend on Google money. It's really strange. The whole setup does not work well. I understand that they want to make money, but why would I want to support facebook-agents using spy glasses at all? That makes no sense, so I decided when an audit-channel uses facebook spy glasses or anyone else's corporations spy-glasses, I won't watch anything from there. Same with AI content - anyone using AI content I instantly add to a perma-ban list. I recently saw more and more people use AI slop images and AI filters. This is soooooo horrible. These people don't seem to understand that AI slop kills interest. Yet some swear by it - it is fascinating. Those who use AI slop, can not be convinced that using AI slop is detrimental. They have been converted into AI skynet servants.
In the novel "The Mountain in the Sea" (great read, very pertinent as well for the discussion of AGI and what is consciousness), an "abglanz" is like a digital identity shield that hides a person's face behind a shifting weird pattern of colours. I wonder how far off we are from everyone just retreating into higher privacy settings and opt out.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49785429
From https://about.fb.com/news/2026/07/metas-ai-glasses-your-ques...
The problem is the LED isn’t enabled currently when live streaming content to Instagram or Facebook. Most live streams can just be captured and recorded by someone else. This is a huge cap in privacy and safety even if the LED was fully functional without tampering.
https://actionstreamer.com/blog/how-to-live-stream-on-meta-r...
cap -> gap
The LED is active when you are using the camera. It's hardwired.
Or someone can just turn off updates and never download the patch.
It's a meta product. Safe to assume that sooner or later it will be unusable unless you install the latest update so it can continue phoning home.
Yes it's true people have figured out how to disable the safeguard, but we all agree the important thing as we try to sell millions more of these is that we tried, right?
These reactionary takes on HN suck. No, it's not easy for the average person to disable the camera on these glasses. They do continuously make it harder to do so. At this point anyone interested in spy glasses is better off buying one of the many other glasses with cameras in it.
I think you're asking too much of a publication to do this kind of investigative reporting.
Their job is to scan the app store for any app that is anti-tech and has at least 1k downloads and write an article about how there's huge backlash.
This is Wired, not some random substack. What a lazy, cynical comment.
The Spy Glasses need to be abolished everywhere.
I was, however had, quite surprised when I saw them used by "auditors" (here, I refer to e. g. "auditors" on youtube specifically). Now this brought a problem for me, because auditors on the one hand, bring interesting encounters, even if they (or some of them) meta-jabait and provoke (again, only some of them at best, in many cases they don't really). But when they use spy glasses to serve greedy mega-corporations, this totally shifts the whole "audit" instantly, because then they also support evil Facebook, Google or what not. And that kind of runs counter to the whole audit-idea. So far I only saw one use the facebook spy glasses, but I wonder whether he even gave any thought to this. I understand why he uses spy glasses, but I don't understand why he does it to benefit Facebook. That IMO puts the whole idea behind audits instantly in a wrong angle. I haven't seen others use it, so perhaps it just was one or few, but they don't seem to really think anymore. Some audit channels were also censored by Google in the last weeks, others were not, but this just amplifies the whole problem here. Imagine if the spy glasses were made by Google. And the auditors depend on Google money. It's really strange. The whole setup does not work well. I understand that they want to make money, but why would I want to support facebook-agents using spy glasses at all? That makes no sense, so I decided when an audit-channel uses facebook spy glasses or anyone else's corporations spy-glasses, I won't watch anything from there. Same with AI content - anyone using AI content I instantly add to a perma-ban list. I recently saw more and more people use AI slop images and AI filters. This is soooooo horrible. These people don't seem to understand that AI slop kills interest. Yet some swear by it - it is fascinating. Those who use AI slop, can not be convinced that using AI slop is detrimental. They have been converted into AI skynet servants.
It only works while the glasses are in pairing mode. This is useless.
I'm not sure why you think that, bluetooth devices often broadcast their presence even when not in pairing mode
it's even on the site
isn't this security flaw ????
Probably, it's how bluetooth is used to track devices/people too.
Existing, probably less sketchy app: https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses (as linked in the other thread)
A better solution would be to beat up people who wear such things. Just an idea.
The difference is using an app to detect hidden camera glasses is legal while beating the shit out of random people on the street is not lol
Why do any of the device's network connections (WiFi/BT/etc) need to be on? What's to stop someone recording and uploading later?
In the novel "The Mountain in the Sea" (great read, very pertinent as well for the discussion of AGI and what is consciousness), an "abglanz" is like a digital identity shield that hides a person's face behind a shifting weird pattern of colours. I wonder how far off we are from everyone just retreating into higher privacy settings and opt out.