ZuckOff: an app that knows when a camera is in the room

ZuckOff begins with a single promise: know when a camera is in the room. The app listens for the Bluetooth advertisements that camera glasses emit and reports when a pair of Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta, Snap Spectacles or similar hardware is nearby. The developer says nothing leaves the phone and there is no account.

What it flags

The app works from manufacturer signatures rather than guesswork. Its published list includes the identifier 0x0D53, used by Luxottica for Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta, 0x058E for a Meta Platforms Technologies wearable, 0x03C2 for Snap's Spectacles and 0xFD5F, a service UUID registered to Oculus VR. Product names such as Spectacles, HeyCyan, VisionPro and VistaView are matched as well, but at lower confidence.

What the app shows you

Every flag comes with the evidence behind it, so a user can disagree with the app's conclusion. ZuckOff also logs every Bluetooth device it hears, glasses or not, and lets owners of camera glasses mark their own pair once so it stops raising alerts. On iPhone it offers background alerts, a Home Screen widget and a Lock Screen Live Activity; scans can be started or stopped from the Shortcuts app, Siri or an automation, and the whole log exports as CSV.

What it cannot do

The site is explicit about the limits. Glasses are loudest when they power on, pair or leave the case; most pairs keep advertising while worn, but a few standalone models stay silent. Quiet is not proof that nobody is recording, and a detection is not proof that anyone is. Signal strength gives a rough distance and no direction.

How the detection list grows

The developer says every rule in ZuckOff comes from a capture of a real device, and that the project owns only a few pairs. Owners of camera glasses the app does not list are asked to email a short scan capture; the project offers to take hardware on loan and return it once recorded, and says it is open to working with privacy groups. Support runs through Suppi and Buy Me a Coffee, and merchandise printed to order by Fourthwall supports the app. ZuckOff says it is independent and not affiliated with Meta, Luxottica, Ray-Ban, Oakley or Snap; it is distributed on the App Store and Google Play, and the site is published in more than a dozen languages.