ZuckOff Is a Free App That Sees Meta Glasses Before They See You

ZuckOff is a free Bluetooth detection app designed by 30-year-old Polish developer Pawel Szydlowski. The app informs users if there are any smart glasses in the room. Within its first month, the app saw over 5,000 downloads on the Apple App Store and has since been downloaded 1,000 times on the Google Play Store. The rise of Meta's smart glasses has sparked concerns regarding unsolicited filming, leading to venues such as schools and cinemas banning their usage.

Szydlowski collected Bluetooth signals from various smart glasses models, creating a digital fingerprint to identify them. He physically tested each model's hardware to compile the data, which flags unique identifiers that match manufacturer identifiers, thus detecting models like Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta, and Snap Spectacles. A BBC investigation revealed that Meta glasses were used to film a 21-year-old woman's face and phone number, which garnered over 1.3 million views.

The recording indicator light on these glasses can be easily disabled, leading to a growing number of users recording without detection. Meta sold approximately seven million pairs of smart glasses in 2025. In response to privacy concerns, Meta announced an update in July to detect when the LED light has been tampered with or destroyed, preventing people from filming.

Meta's CTO, Andrew Bosworth, stated that the camera design warns those around the wearer. However, ZuckOff cannot determine if a pair of glasses nearby is recording nor identify the wearer. It detects signal strength to provide proximity information, turning a hidden issue into a partially visible one, at least until legislators take further action globally.

At the same time, Meta faces legal challenges in taking down the app, as it doesn't intercept anything, and the signals read by the app are legal. The hardware is cheap and easy to copy. A free version of the app is available on iPhones, while a Pro version with additional features like continuous background monitoring, widgets, alerts, sighting history, and CSV export is also available for purchase.