What if your smart glasses let you talk to an AI assistant but couldn’t film anyone? Meta is reportedly working on just such a pair, according to a Sept. 15 report by The Information.
The report comes amid a growing backlash to camera-equipped glasses: some venues have banned them, activists have put up spoof Meta ads, and people have described being filmed without their knowledge. Over the past week, thousands have turned to the app store to download ZuckOff — a new app that helps spot camera-equipped smart glasses nearby.
Meta’s reported new model, internally called Luna, could debut at its Connect conference on Sept. 23 and 24, according to the report, citing unnamed sources close familiar with the plans. The company is reportedly aiming to ship it in October.
Without a camera, Luna would focus on audio. The glasses allegedly have six microphones for talking to Meta’s AI assistant, speakers that direct sound toward the wearer’s ears, and a button that quickly activates Meta AI. They could come in two styles, reportedly called Clubmaster and Burbank.
That would give wearers some of the conveniences of Meta’s current glasses without letting them capture point-of-view photos and videos. It would also remove one immediate concern for anyone standing in front of the wearer: whether or not they’re being filmed without consent. Luna would still have microphones, so camera-free wouldn’t settle every privacy question. But it would be a change to a product category built in part around hands-free recording.
Meta’s camera-equipped glasses are no longer a novelty. EssilorLuxottica, Meta’s eyewear partner and the owner of Ray-Ban and Oakley, said it sold more than 7 million pairs of AI glasses in 2025. As they become more common, the person wearing them may know exactly what they can do… though people nearby may not.
An app for people on the other side of the lens
Those concerned about privacy are the audience for ZuckOff. Created by Polish developer Pawel Szydlowski, the free app listens for Bluetooth signals associated with camera-equipped smart glasses. When it finds a possible match, it shows what kind of device it detected, how confident it is, and roughly how close the device may be. Its supported models include Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta glasses, as well as Snap Spectacles.
Szydlowski told Business Insider he was troubled by videos of people using smart glasses to film strangers, particularly women approached by pickup artists. In some of the videos he saw, the subjects’ faces were left visible, and commenters tried to identify them. “We as a society have the right to at least know that someone is recording,” he said.
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ZuckOff has drawn both enthusiasm and skepticism online. In one Reddit discussion, r/technology commenters joked that the app is a “Glasshole Detector.” Others questioned how reliably the glasses could be detected, since they may not always broadcast a Bluetooth signal.
Skepticism is warranted after reading the fine print: Finding a pair of glasses does not mean its wearer is recording, and ZuckOff cannot identify or see the wearer. The app’s listing itself warns that glasses may broadcast less detectable information once they’re paired with a phone. And if the app finds nothing, that doesn’t prove there are no cameras around. Though modest, the information is better than nothing. As one person in r/privacy wrote, “It’s not perfect but I like to see some resistance.”
By Sept. 15, ZuckOff had surpassed 5,000 downloads on Apple’s App Store and reached at least 1,000 on Google Play. Scanning is free; on iPhone, paid options add background alerts and a longer sighting history.
ZuckOff isn’t the only attempt to give bystanders a heads-up. The free, open-source Android app Nearby Glasses also scans for Bluetooth identifiers associated with smart glasses. Its Google Play listing shows more than 100,000 downloads.
The privacy questions go beyond recording
Pranksters and pickup artists are using Meta Ray-Ban glasses to harass strangers for content
The growing concern isn’t hypothetical. Mashable previously reported on creators using smart glasses to turn unsuspecting people into social media content.
Some filmed themselves approaching women to ask for their phone numbers, then posted the encounters for audiences that scrutinized the women’s reactions. Others targeted people at work, trapping cashiers in circular conversations, or bothering drive-thru workers to provoke a response.
Meta’s existing glasses have a small light that signals when they’re recording. But wearers have found ways to cover or tamper with it. Meta says it has added safeguards that prevent photos or video when the light is covered.
Recording is only part of the privacy concern; what happens to the footage afterward matters, too. In a recent Swedish investigation, workers at a Meta contractor in Kenya said they had viewed deeply private footage captured by smart glasses while helping train the company’s AI, including clips of people using the bathroom or changing clothes and videos showing bank cards. One worker described seeing a man leave his glasses on a bedside table before his wife entered and changed clothes. Meta later said users’ photos and videos are private, human review of AI content requires consent, and it was ending its work with the contractor after examining the allegations.
Then there’s what the glasses might do in the future. In June, WIRED found code for an unreleased facial-recognition system called NameTag in Meta’s companion app. According to their analysis, it was designed to turn faces seen by the glasses into biometric signatures and compare them with information stored on the wearer’s phone. (Meta removed the code after the report was released.)
All of this helps explain why a camera-free option might appeal to both wearers and the people around them. With Connect only a week away, Luna could let Meta test a different pitch: that smart glasses might be more appealing when they do less.
If the company unveils them, we may find out whether the camera has been holding people back from buying a pair — or if it was the selling point all along.