- A new update is coming to Meta’s smart glasses
- It should stop modders from disabling the light that lets people know you’re using the camera
- Meta is also targeting modders on and off its platform
Last month we shared details of reports that Meta glasses were being modded to bypass privacy protections and turn them into secret spy glasses. Now Meta has revealed it will update the glasses’ software to detect whether its light has been tampered with (or destroyed) to prevent recording.
Whenever you take a photo or video with Meta glasses, a white light appears on the front of the glasses to signal to people around you that you’re filming.
For creeps looking to be more secretive with their recordings, this light is a hindrance, but Meta has imposed more basic tamper-proof features since launch. That is, any attempt to use the camera while the light is blocked — such as by a piece of tape — wouldn’t be allowed. The trouble is, modders have found ways to open up the glasses and disable or damage the light and its mechanisms that prevent it from showing, without getting flagged by the system — meaning you can use the camera as you normally would, but without anyone else knowing.
This is (to put it bluntly) not good, and when the reports came out, a Meta spokesperson told me that the company was looking into ways to disable this workaround.
They also explained that Meta is working hard to stamp out advertisements for these kinds of services — some of which appeared on its own Facebook Marketplace platform — with its latest announcement explaining this means banning accounts, taking down listings, and taking legal action against people or businesses that tamper with its tech.
Beyond the detail of updating software to prevent tampering, the whole article from Meta is focused on privacy, and crucially how Meta keeps you and others safe.
Thanks to people misusing its tech, the wider notoriety these gadgets are getting again, and reports of contractors seeing recorded images and videos that Meta glasses users might not have fully realized they could see, Meta and smart glasses makers have been facing major privacy questions.
With this article, Meta seems to answer many of them, though we’ll have to wait and see if it can convince users — or if they might be tempted by the rise of cameraless smart glasses.
The only way is cameraless?
Even Realities, another smart glasses firm, recently announced it has raised $150 million in investment at a $1 billion valuation — not too shabby for a company that only launched its first XR gadget in 2024.
Instead of Meta’s camera-first approach, Even Realities went for a display-first approach. Information is shown visually as green text and basic diagrams to provide features such as AI advice, navigational directions, or a speech appearing on a virtual prompter. Its specs also lack speakers, though that’s not true for all glasses of their kind.
Losing out on the camera is, of course, a major privacy win for some, as there’s no possible way for the glasses to see something they shouldn’t or be used to spy.
The thing is, I think these kinds of glasses are pretty terrible. Having tested a few at home, the ones without a camera just aren’t worth wearing.
Smart glasses, despite being increasingly popular, are in their infancy, which in the tech world means you can expect to pay a fair sum for relatively limited features — that’s the price of being an early adopter. That’s especially true, I’ve found, for these XR glasses specifically, because while they can offer several tools like navigation, on-screen translations, a prompter, and notification pop-ups, their usefulness is pretty limited.
How often do you need a prompter? Or one-way translation tools? In the case of the latter, because these kinds of glasses often have you rely on your phone to set up the translation feature or access other features, you might as well just turn to something like Google Translate — which has conversation modes so that two people can talk and see translations through a single device.
The software I’ve found for these types of specs can also be pretty terrible with sluggishness, inaccuracies, and crashes — and if I, as someone who tests smart glasses professionally, have trouble, I can’t imagine what less techy people must think.
Additionally, the green text can be hard to make out on a bright day if you’re outside, making on-screen directions difficult to see.
While admittedly more limited feature-wise, the Meta glasses and smart specs like them feel like way better value for money. From Meta specifically, the software is generally very reliable, and more broadly, the ability to snap a photo whenever — either to capture a moment or to provide context for an AI’s response — comes in handy so often.
Even if it isn’t as good as my phone camera, the ability to record a memory, hands-free and without being taken out of the moment, is so utterly delightful.
Yes, there are privacy challenges which need to be hashed out more formally, as even without the ability to record privately there is still plenty of room for creeps to harass people with this kind of gadget, but if you want a pair of smart glasses right now there simply isn’t a better option.
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hamish.hector@futurenet.com (Hamish Hector)
