When Paweł Mateusz Szydłowski spotted someone wearing Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses at a café, he couldn't tell whether the camera perched on their frames was recording. That unsettling ambiguity bothered the 30-year-old software developer enough to build something about it.
His answer: ZuckOff, a free smartphone app that scans for nearby camera-equipped smart glasses and alerts users when the devices are within Bluetooth range. By early September 2026, the app had drawn approximately 5,000 users on iOS and around 3,800 downloads on Android, tapping into growing unease about wearable cameras that can record without obvious signals.
The tool works by scanning Bluetooth Low Energy signals, matching broadcast signatures against a database Szydłowski assembled from real hardware. Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta glasses broadcast a manufacturer ID of 0x0D53, while Snap Spectacles use 0x03C2. When ZuckOff spots those specific codes in the radio chatter around a user's phone, it flags the match.
"If the unique identifier matches, and also if the manufacturer identifier matches, then we have like an ultimate combo there," Szydłowski explained in an interview, his phrasing hinting at the satisfaction of cracking a technical puzzle.
The app estimates rough proximity using received signal strength—arm's length, same room, nearby—but cannot pinpoint direction or confirm whether the device is actively recording. Visible headsets like Meta Quest or Apple Vision Pro show up in the log but trigger no alarm; Szydłowski reasons that nobody mistakes those bulky visors for covert surveillance.
Testing by technology outlets generally confirmed the app's accuracy in detecting known hardware, though the system has limits. Some smart glasses dial back Bluetooth advertising when paired to a phone, meaning silence doesn't guarantee absence. And ZuckOff has no way to identify who's wearing the glasses or what they're doing with them.
Szydłowski, who works independently from Starachowice, Poland, has published several iOS apps over the years—ViewItOnce, LoveClock, VaxKeeper—but none addressed privacy flashpoints quite like this one. He told reporters that society deserves at least basic awareness when someone nearby might be recording. "There's a need for such an application," he said.
The core scanning feature remains free on both platforms. A Pro tier, priced around $10 annually or $25 as a one-time purchase, adds background monitoring, extended history logs, home-screen widgets and Apple Watch support. (Android pricing follows similar contours.) As of early September 2026, the app had reached approximately 5,000 iOS users and around 3,800 Android downloads.
ZuckOff hit the market amid intensifying scrutiny of camera-equipped wearables. A summer investigation by WIRED uncovered unreleased facial-recognition code embedded in a Meta companion app, stoking fears that smart glasses could eventually identify strangers on the street. Meta maintained that no such feature had shipped to consumers and later announced it would disable cameras if the recording LED is tampered with—a nod to ongoing concerns about hardware hacks.
Competing detection apps have appeared, including AntiZuck on iOS and the open-source Nearby Glasses for Android. AntiZuck briefly climbed iOS charts during the initial wave of interest. Meanwhile, California legislators have weighed criminal penalties for recording in certain private spaces without consent or for disabling recording indicators, though that measure was still pending as of this writing.
The app's listing on both the iOS App Store and Google Play notes that ZuckOff collects no user data beyond device identifiers necessary for functionality. Szydłowski emphasizes that his project has no affiliation with Meta, Luxottica, Ray-Ban, Oakley or Snap. He invites hardware contributions via email—an open call to help expand the signature database as new models reach the market.
Hacker News users pushed the project to the site's front page, sparking the sort of sprawling thread that blends technical admiration with philosophical handwringing about privacy in public spaces. Some commenters praised the concept as a necessary countermeasure; others questioned whether Bluetooth sniffing would devolve into a cat-and-mouse game as manufacturers adjust their broadcast behavior.
Szydłowski seems undeterred. His app won't stop someone from recording, but it might restore a sliver of awareness—a quiet heads-up in a world where cameras keep shrinking and the cues we once relied on to know we're being watched have all but vanished.
