[HN Gopher] Nearby Glasses
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Nearby Glasses
Author : zingerlio
Score : 177 points
Date : 2026-02-24 17:40 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.404media.co/this-app-warns-you-if-someone-is-wea...
| burkaman wrote:
| Tried this on a Pixel 9, after allowing permissions the Start
| Scanning button does nothing, and there's nothing in the debug
| log. I do like the idea and might try again in the future if it
| gets updated. Seems like a good candidate for F-Droid instead of
| Google Play.
| Morizero wrote:
| I had to tap the sprocket in the top right and enable
| Foreground Service to get the button to work
| crustaceansoup wrote:
| On my Pixel 9 this overlaps the status bar, and can't be
| clicked. I worked around that by split-screening it with
| another app.
| tantalor wrote:
| I'm a bit torn on this because (at least in the sci-fi utopia
| stories) when a critical mass of people are recording full time
| then interpersonal crime and anti-social behavior is strongly
| discouraged. It's like an honor-based culture at scale.
| roughly wrote:
| 50 years ago anti-social behavior included homosexuality.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Also included drinking from the fountain or sitting in seats
| or eating at a restaurant with people colored differently
| from you. I wonder what we're going to make "antisocial" in
| the next 50 years and whether or not we'll be punishing
| people for things we'll consider benign again in 75 years.
| The whole "let's surveil everything to stop all antisocial
| behaviors" might be going too far just like the idea that
| everyone should open carry to reduce crime.
| tclancy wrote:
| Can you show your math on how an example of the opposite of
| what the person you are responding to you can also mean the
| same thing? Feel free to skip if you live in a non-
| Euclidian geometry, but the OP was saying such a thing
| would have been likely to get people killed in the past for
| violating a society's mores.
| emptybits wrote:
| > It's like an honor-based culture at scale.
|
| Except the basis of that culture would not be honour, would it?
| A critical mass of people scrutinizing and reporting others'
| actions might lead to a compliance-based culture. It's
| different IMO. i.e. intrinsic motivation to behave well
| (honour, morality, decency) versus extrinsic motivation to
| behave well (fear of unpopularity, law enforcement, mob
| reaction, etc.)
| zephen wrote:
| I think you're missing the point. Or, on re-reading, the
| parent is missing the point.
|
| "Honor culture" or "Culture of honor" is the term for people
| who are thin-skinned, quick to offense, and worried more
| about appearances than substance.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_honor_(Southern_Uni.
| ..
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing
|
| It's all about a shame-based society. When someone is made to
| feel ashamed, they might lash out. It's practically the
| opposite of guilt, which is directed inwardly.
|
| At the margins, a shamed person might commit mass murder,
| while a guilty person might commit suicide.
|
| Before you get to the margin, both guilty people and shamed
| people might alter their behavior in beneficial ways, but
| they do it for subtly different reasons.
| emptybits wrote:
| Thanks. I had to be reminded about that phrase "honor
| culture" and, yes, I've heard that definition before.
|
| I was focused on how I think an "honourable person"
| behaves, which is ... IMO ... someone who behaves well
| regardless of whether or not someone is watching them. i.e.
| being guided by a personal moral compass, without cultural
| shame, guilt, government laws, religious conventions, or
| physical fear being primary motivators
|
| But of course, if I adopt a religion's or legal system's
| idea of morality as my personal compass (certainly the
| easiest way to go, and easily installed in youth) ... then
| the distinction falls apart. Cheers.
| zephen wrote:
| > But of course, if I adopt a religion's or legal
| system's idea of morality as my personal compass
| (certainly the easiest way to go, and easily installed in
| youth) ... then the distinction falls apart.
|
| That's obviously part of it, but not the entirety of it.
| Guiding your own behavior is different than feeling
| compelled to also dictate others' behavior. Honor culture
| is usually putatively religious, yet is diametrically
| opposed to "judge not lest ye be judged."
|
| To be fully immersed in it is to feel personally slighted
| by any perceived transgressions against the normal order
| of things, and to have zero sense of proportion about
| which things are truly harmful to all of us, and which
| things are simply not how we would do things or prefer
| things to be done.
| pibaker wrote:
| It's like how people misunderstand trust. "I trust open
| source software because I can review the code." No you don't.
| If you need to review the code then you are already not
| trusting it. Same deal with "honor" -- the entire point of
| honor is you don't need eyes everywhere to look for
| misbehavior. You trust people to do the right thing. There is
| no trust in a police state.
| hoten wrote:
| Right. God help you in such a society if the power goes out.
| phoronixrly wrote:
| Which sci-fi utopia stories exactly are you referring to?
| Please remind me, because all the scifi with ubiquitous
| surveillace I recall are about dystopias instead.
| morkalork wrote:
| Right, this is more like Black Mirror S1E3 "The Entire
| History of You"
| tantalor wrote:
| I can't recall exactly but it may have been _The Light of
| Other Days_
| r2_pilot wrote:
| I believe The Light of Other Days has slow-glass that you
| expose to a scene, it drinks it in, and then plays it back
| later.
| burkaman wrote:
| Mass recording discourages social behavior, not anti-social
| behavior.
| drawfloat wrote:
| Recording people going about their day is anti social
| behaviour.
| pityJuke wrote:
| Yes look at this article showing all of the wonderful anti-
| social behaviour prevented by smart glasses:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx23ke7rm7go
|
| (hint: smart glasses encourage anti social behaviour for online
| clout.)
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| from my recollection in most of the stories that is the primary
| starting point of the narrative but as the story goes along it
| turns out what you have is a dystopia, which is what it looks
| like we would actually get.
| jibal wrote:
| That's the opposite of honor-based, and those stories are
| warnings about going down that path.
| zephen wrote:
| "Honor-based" has a specific meaning, and it is not good.
|
| If the parent is torn about whether this is good or bad,
| they're _really_ not paying attention.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_honor_(Southern_Uni.
| ..
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.wired.com/2013/12/glasshole/
|
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Glasshole
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| It will be a delight for anyone who ever wished there existed
| footage of every time they vomited in public or face-planted
| after tripping on a cobblestone.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Would you consider East Germany a sort of social Utopia?
| Etheryte wrote:
| Firstly, fear and honor are far from being the same thing.
| Second, we already have this in our society today via
| smartphones and things have not changed for the better. If
| anything, society is more torn than ever.
| tamimio wrote:
| Need an iOS.
|
| But I think very soon the whole detection won't be enough,
| because most people will have glasses, phones, CCTV, etc., I
| think the best is protecting yourself, so a cloak mask or
| similar, where for humans it's barely visible but for machines it
| blocks you from being scanned or recorded.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| an invisibility cloak! crazy times, maybe we can make anti-
| smart-glasses glasses that detect smart glasses and have an
| invisible beam that can target and blind the cameras
| tamimio wrote:
| > anti-smart-glasses glasses that detect smart glasses and
| have an invisible beam that can target and blind the cameras
|
| I love it! I literally thought of something similar while
| writing the above comment, something like an EMP that
| disables all nearby camera sensors for 10min or so.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| I'm thinking it could be active enough to actually obscure
| the camera recording in real time whenever you are in the
| frame, like an actual beam that goes into the camera lens
| making the normal light intake all distorted, so it
| wouldn't appear to malfunction or fail, it would just be
| like a refracting smudge in the feed.
| tamimio wrote:
| I know these below existed, but it only works against IR
| enabled cameras aka CCTV, but definitely they won't
| against smart glasses, but I love your idea, a glass
| distort the lights, hmmm maybe emit IR?
|
| https://www.reflectacles.com/order/ghost
| cpeterso wrote:
| Can the app run on smart glasses, warning you of other smart
| glasses users nearby? You might not see the notification on your
| phone.
| piskov wrote:
| That would be like antropic and google crying about china
| stealing the weights that were originally built by scraping as
| fuck stolen content :-)
| serf wrote:
| > That would be like antropic and google crying about china
| stealing the weights that were originally built by scraping
| as fuck stolen content :-)
|
| do you really see a relation between the two, or are you just
| willfully 'buying an advertisement' by trying to shape a
| metaphor from the social qualms that you wish to rebroadcast
| to people?
|
| in other words, no -- this isn't at all similar to the
| companies that steal media in order to train models only to
| complain about similar theft from other companies targetted
| towards them -- but I agree with the motivation, fuck em;
| they're crooks...
|
| but don't weaken metaphors simply to advertise a social
| injustice. If you want to do that, don't hijack conversations
| abroad.
| piskov wrote:
| Well, at least Chinese paid for api access and all the
| tokens.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| "Glasses detected within 3 inches."
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| Add satellite imagery, nearby self-driving vehicles / Google maps
| cars, line-of-sight ring doorbells, peripheral street
| surveillance cameras, police equipment, people in your proximity
| with a smartphone camera, and various-purpose drones and then
| you'll have the perfect paranoia alerter.
| nickorlow wrote:
| A big red screen that always says "yes"?
| p_ing wrote:
| The dichotomy between the statement in the repo "False positives
| are _likely_ " and the app message "Smart Glasses are _probably_
| nearby " is interesting.
| burkaman wrote:
| I don't think those are contradictory. Say each notification
| has a 90% chance of being true, so it's reasonable to say
| "probably". After 10+ notifications, each of which was
| individually probable, it is still very likely that at least
| one of them was a false positive.
| mathfailure wrote:
| That's not a dichotomy.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Perceptions of probability:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....
| catoc wrote:
| "When using the app you are _likely_ to experience false
| positives, and when the app alerts you, smart glasses are
| _probably_ nearby."
|
| Nothing contradictory there.
|
| Even "...when the app alerts you, smart glasses are _likely_
| nearby" might be reasonable.
| fusslo wrote:
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meta-trial-mark-zuckerberg-ai-g...
|
| > Judge Carolyn Kuhl, who is presiding over the trial, ordered
| anyone in the courtroom wearing AI glasses to immediately remove
| them, noting that any use of facial recognition technology to
| identify the jurors was banned.
|
| I am not a believer in Zuckerberg's idea of humanity's future.
| Refreeze5224 wrote:
| That's because you are intentionally not included in it. Only
| him and his rich owning class buddies are, the rest of us are
| only profit-generating NPCs.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| This is really neat, I gotta find an android device to try it.
| Reminds me of the good old days of wardriving with kismet and
| netstumbler.
|
| I am surprised there isn't an existing BT/BTLE fingerprint table
| that takes more into account than just what is provided. I would
| assume each device, or atleast each chipset has subtle quirks
| that could be used to weed out some of the false positives.
|
| the link in the readme for the identifiers doesn't work because
| it's relative to the repo, so it is below. I like that they did
| this, it's so much better than the OUI table for mac addresses,
| because some companies (cough cisco) keep getting new ones.
|
| https://bitbucket.org/bluetooth-SIG/public/src/main/assigned...
| paul7986 wrote:
| Bought my first pair of Meta glasses in Oct 2023 and overall I
| really enjoying using smart glasses! They are great for
| quickly/easily capturing life experiences. Also, while traveling
| or wherever asking and getting information on things your looking
| at - it's cool & useful. Tho Meta makes trash as my 1st pair died
| after 14 months of use after a software update and then my 2nd
| pair only lasted 4 months after some water splashes. I called Ray
| Ban for tech support and the lady on the phone agreed they are
| trash per how many calls she gets.
|
| I don't care to take pics of strangers tho lots of people who
| havent adopted them are concerned about such.
|
| Overall no more Meta glasses for me Im waiting for Apple's. They
| have tons of stores to get your glasses fixed and they don't
| manufacture trash that breaks! Also, maybe Apple will add a
| privacy feature so your pics and vids anonymize faces not in your
| personal network.
| cole-k wrote:
| Are you making a counterpoint to the author's premise that
| smart glasses are an "intolerable intrusion?"
|
| I'm having trouble understanding the purpose of your comment
| since it seems like you're just saying the ray ban glasses are
| bad for a different reason.
| paul7986 wrote:
| I love smart glasses they are very useful for people who wear
| sunglasses and use their phone to take pics & videos.
|
| Of course with all new technology people fight against it.
| When I wore them on rollercoasters at Cedar Point in 2024
| ride attendees said take those off and store them in a locker
| at the front entrance of the park (that kid / ride attendant
| hated them). Yet as Feb 2026 Six flags now allows smart
| glasses to be worn thru all its parks and 7 million have been
| sold.
|
| Overall I am detailing why they are useful, why I think they
| will be widely adopted and like many technologies before it
| those who are against them will adopt them too(its a counter
| argument here). Sure some creeps will use them and with that
| in mind Apple has the possible ability to solve that privacy
| issue as they are a privacy company (all pics and vids taken
| thru APple glasses faces not in your network are
| randomize/anonymized).
| paul7986 wrote:
| Also noting my disdain for Meta glasses due to their lack
| of quality and solid customer service Apple will provide.
| arjie wrote:
| Do you have children? I frequently want to record things my
| daughter does but I find that my phone is not close at hand. I
| am curious if the latency to record is low-enough and I don't
| want to distract my daughter while she's doing whatever she's
| doing. I just want to capture the moment for later without
| interrupting the moment. They advertise it as this but I am
| curious what it's like in actuality.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Currently detects via Meta, Essilor or Snap company ID.
|
| So it won't detect my XReal's. I purposefully bought my XReal now
| because it feels like they might be one of the last models
| released without cameras.
|
| But theoretically I could have the XReal Eye attachment on my
| glasses, and could be taking video through that. I don't, but the
| XReal user next to me might.
|
| Of course the USB wire hanging from my ear probably makes me look
| suspicious enough already that the warning probably isn't
| necessary either way...
| btbuildem wrote:
| Sooo technically this is on the edge of legal/not legal,
| depending on your intent and what the judge had for lunch that
| day. ID'ing devices without consent is a grey area at best.
| davidee wrote:
| Filming/video and lookups of people filtered through a
| corporate data mining operation without their consent should
| also be illegal. I'll take my chances, thank you.
|
| I recently had to interact with an idiot wearing meta glasses.
| There should be a mandatory consent requirement AND an "on air"
| red led.
| leephillips wrote:
| Do you mean in the courtroom or anywhere? Because filming and
| photographing people in public is legal everywhere in the
| U.S., and no consent is required.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _Do you mean in the courtroom or anywhere? Because
| filming and photographing people in public is legal
| everywhere in the U.S., and no consent is required._
|
| First, note that "filming" in public is not necessarily
| legal in every state if you include recording audio of
| conversations you're not party to.
|
| Second, the GP said _should_ be illegal without consent, so
| clearly was talking about what 's they consider right, not
| necessarily what is.
|
| But most importantly, "filming and photographing people in
| public" is also obviously not what the GP was talking
| about. They said:
|
| > _Filming /video and lookups of people filtered through a
| corporate data mining operation without their consent
| should also be illegal._
|
| And, actually, extracting biometrics from video of people
| and tracking them/data mining them without consent is in
| fact not legal in several states already, and potentially
| federal law, depending on what they do.
| pluralmonad wrote:
| Is this legal advice?
| cloudfudge wrote:
| I'd probably go for "the device explicitly allowed itself to be
| ID'd by intentionally broadcasting a signal intended for this
| purpose."
| NoahZuniga wrote:
| > judge had for lunch
|
| This would be a criminal matter, so a jury would have to decide
| if you're guilty. I feel like you'd have a hard time convincing
| 12 jurors that you're doing something wrong here.
| driverdan wrote:
| [citation needed]
| magicalist wrote:
| > _Sooo technically this is on the edge of legal /not legal,
| depending on your intent and what the judge had for lunch that
| day. ID'ing devices without consent is a grey area at best._
|
| It's looking at the BLE advertising packets that they send out
| to everybody. The only thing stored is manufacturer ID, not a
| device ID (which you wouldn't be able to get anyways).
|
| You might as well try to press charges against Apple or Google
| for putting readable names for nearby devices that aren't yours
| in the bluetooth pairing screen.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| What region has laws that you're not allowed to look at a
| packet that was broadcast from a device? This sounds prima
| facie absurd, but I know a lot of strange laws exist out there.
| LlamaTrauma wrote:
| relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1251/
| yunnpp wrote:
| If you're wearing these glasses and recording people in public,
| you're asking for a sweet punch in the face. I'm sure the little
| pieces of glass will look very nice inside your eyeballs.
|
| Also, Mark Zuckerberg keeps making one socially disgusting
| product after another. Motherfucker should go bite some dust at
| this point.
| catoc wrote:
| Would renaming to _"Nearby Glassholes"_ be acceptable as a PR?
| micw wrote:
| Give it a try ^^
| hedayet wrote:
| Projects like this are useful not only for identifying creeps
| nearby, but also for highlighting a broader issue: once AI
| glasses become common, everyone nearby becomes part of the
| experiment.
|
| I recently switched away from my usual brand when they started
| shipping AI-enabled glasses. That was my small way of opting out.
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(page generated 2026-02-24 23:00 UTC)