Coming soon for iPhone
Smart glasses detector for iPhone
An iPhone can receive the Bluetooth broadcasts that many wearables send out. Smart Glasses Scanner uses that to look for signs of compatible smart glasses and to show the evidence behind each result. Here is what such a detector can honestly do, what it cannot, and where ours stands.
Is there a smart glasses detector app for iPhone?
Short answer: Smart Glasses Scanner is one, currently in development and not yet released. It scans the Bluetooth Low Energy signals that iOS exposes and compares them with researched smart-glasses signatures. Whether a specific glasses model is detectable depends on what that hardware broadcasts in a given state, which has to be measured on real devices; no model is listed as detectable until that has been done.
What the app does
- Scan. Your iPhone listens for Bluetooth signals from nearby devices.
- Match. The app compares those signals with researched smart-glasses signatures.
- Understand. When evidence matches, you see what was found, the confidence level, and why it matched.
Matching runs on your iPhone. The app has no account, never uses location, and never uploads Bluetooth observations. See how detection works.
What Bluetooth can and cannot reveal
Four different questions are often run together. Keeping them apart is what separates a detector from a guess.
| Layer | What it establishes | Status for smart glasses |
|---|---|---|
| The Bluetooth specification allows | Devices may broadcast a company identifier, service UUIDs, a name and manufacturer-specific bytes in an advertisement. | Known fact Bluetooth SIG Core Specification Supplement. |
| iOS exposes | Exactly eight fields per discovery, plus signal strength. No hardware address. Background scanning is filtered, coalesced and slower. | Known fact Apple Core Bluetooth documentation. |
| This device broadcasts | Which identifiers a specific pair of glasses actually sends, in which states (in the case, pairing, connected to its owner's phone, recording). | Unknown Not established for any device on this site. Registrations show ownership of an identifier, not use. |
| We observed | Measurements from our own hardware sessions, with export files. | Unknown None yet. See testing status. |
What no Bluetooth detector can tell you
- Whether someone is recording. No manufacturer documents a camera or microphone state in its advertisements and none has been observed, so the app does not read one. For Meta's and Snap's camera glasses the manufacturers describe a capture light as the visible indicator.
- Who is wearing them. iOS does not expose hardware addresses, and the app deliberately does not link sightings across identifier changes.
- That the room is clear. Glasses connected to their owner's phone may advertise nothing, and a backgrounded app hears less. No detection is not evidence of absence.
- Distance in metres. Signal strength is a coarse proximity hint affected by bodies, walls and orientation. Why RSSI is not distance.
Which glasses are covered
The device database holds one research record per product family, with manufacturer-sourced facts about camera, microphones and capture light, the Bluetooth identifiers under research, and two statuses that only change through recorded tests.
- Even Realities G1 — detection: researching; independent test: not yet published
- Oakley Meta (HSTN and Vanguard) — detection: researching; independent test: not yet published
- Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 1 and Gen 2) — detection: researching; independent test: in progress
- Snap Spectacles (5th generation) and Specs — detection: researching; independent test: not yet published
- Vuzix Z100 — detection: unknown; independent test: not yet published
What to expect from any detector
- It shows its evidence. A result you cannot inspect is an opinion. Ours lists each matched identifier and its source.
- It publishes what it has tested. Coverage claims should trace to hardware sessions with dates, phone model and iOS version. Ours are on the testing status page and, once they exist, on each device page.
- It states its limits in the product. Not in a footnote: in the detection screen itself.
- It does not become a tracker. No account, no location, no uploads, no linking of sightings into a profile. Our privacy model.
Related
- How to detect smart glasses — visual cues, the capture light, and Bluetooth as a supporting signal
- Guide for teachers — camera glasses in classrooms
- FAQ — including "Can it tell if someone is recording?"
Sources
- Advertisement Data Retrieval Keys (Core Bluetooth) — Apple Developer Documentation, accessed 16 September 2026
- Core Bluetooth Background Processing — Apple Developer Documentation, accessed 16 September 2026
- Assigned Numbers (company identifiers, 16-bit UUIDs) — Bluetooth SIG, accessed 16 September 2026
- Privacy settings for Meta AI glasses (capture LED) — Meta, accessed 17 September 2026
Coming soon for iPhone
Get notified at launch
One email with the iPhone launch link, plus major updates such as the first hardware test results.