$60 Mod for Meta’s Ray-Bans Lets You Be a Creep Without Getting Punched in the Face

When Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses first came out, people were understandably concerned that, given the product’s ability to record its surroundings, they would make creepy behavior incredibly easy. Meta swiftly quelled such concerns by adding a distinct feature to the product: a “privacy-protecting” light. The light is supposed to turn on whenever the user is recording, thus alerting other people to what’s happening. Now, however, a new report shows that the glasses have been modded to ditch the pesky warning light and make the world a little safer for creeps again.

404 Media reports that it has come across the work of a “hobbyist” who modifies Meta’s smart glasses and, for a small price ($60), sells them to interested buyers. He markets the Meta mod glasses on his YouTube channel and seems to sell them on eBay, according to the report.

404 purchased one pair of the modded glasses for the purposes of testing. According to the outlet, the glasses could covertly record their surroundings with ease, and, from the outside, it was basically impossible to tell that the glasses had been modified:

…[the] work, for what it’s worth, is quite high quality. The only indication that the glasses had been modified at all was the fact that the seal on the box it came in was broken. But otherwise, the padding on the glasses’ arms were on, as was a plastic pull tab on the nose piece that the user is required to remove before testing it.

There are a whole assortment of ways this could play out, but it’s not great since, even before such modifications existed, people were already doing all kinds of creepy stuff with these glasses.

Gizmodo reached out to Meta for comment. In a statement shared with 404 Media, the company said that “trying to intentionally cover the LED capture light, disable it or otherwise tamper with the glasses” was a violation of its terms of service. Oh no, not a violation of the terms of service! Maybe the people doing this should reconsider.

It continued: “The Capture LED is there for a reason. It lets others know when you use your glasses to take photos and record videos for your gallery or streaming. If the LED is covered, you’ll be notified to clear it. We’ve made tangible improvements to bystander privacy with a larger and more noticeable LED and innovations such as tamper detection when we launched Ray-Ban Meta glasses.” 

Zuckerberg has been preoccupied with the smart glasses thing for quite some time, and it’s clear he wants to be the leader in this arena. Zuck once said he felt the glasses could create the “ideal social experience.” If you agree that this is the world you want to live in, there’s good news. Clandestinely buying a fancy mod from a stranger on YouTube isn’t even necessary. You can pick up a 12-pack of stickers specifically sold for covering the capture light on Amazon for $14.99.