Nearby Lens: Glasses Detector

Nearby Lens is a free smart glasses detector for Android phones and Wear OS watches. It scans for the Bluetooth Low Energy signals camera-equipped smart glasses broadcast while switched on, and alerts you when a likely pair is detected nearby.

No pairing. No account. No internet connection required.

NOW ON YOUR WEAR OS WATCH

The watch app is included free, and it is not a remote control for your phone. It scans on the watch's own Bluetooth radio, so detection keeps working with your phone left at home.

• Wrist alerts: a vibration and a notification the moment something is detected
• Tile with one-tap start and stop
• Watch face complication showing scan state at a glance
• Background scanning that survives screen-off and resumes after a reboot
• The same detection database and confidence scoring as the phone app, updated over the air
• Phone and watch share what each sees instead of buzzing you twice

WHAT NEARBY LENS DETECTS

• Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta smart glasses
• Snap Spectacles
• Vuzix smart glasses
• Amazon Echo Frames and Bose Frames audio glasses
• XREAL, Rokid, RayNeo, INMO, Solos, Halliday and Epson Moverio
• Other wearable devices that broadcast an identifiable Bluetooth signature

The detection database is delivered over the air, so newly released models are added without you having to update the app.

BUILT TO BE ACCURATE

Every Bluetooth Low Energy device broadcasts advertising packets carrying a manufacturer identifier, a service UUID, or a device name. Nearby Lens compares those against its signature database and scores each detection for confidence.

It does more than match a manufacturer ID. Ray-Ban Meta glasses are confirmed from a byte-level fingerprint in their advertising payload, which tells them apart from Meta VR headsets sharing the same company ID. Product families that share identifiers with TVs, printers, soundbars and earbuds are scored down, so a television is not reported as eyewear. Detections are named by brand rather than by a raw Bluetooth string, and read identically on your phone and your watch.

Signal strength gives a rough distance. Nothing is ever sent to the detected device — the scan is entirely passive reception.

BUILT FOR ANDROID

• Home screen widget and a Quick Settings tile
• Foreground service keeps background scanning alive under Android's battery rules
• Scanning resumes automatically after a reboot if you left it on
• Adjustable sensitivity: strict, balanced or relaxed
• Alert sound and vibration toggles, plus a re-alert cooldown
• Local detection history you can copy or share
• Works offline

WHAT IT CANNOT DO

Nearby Lens is honest about its limits, because a detection tool that overpromises is not useful:

• A detection means a device matching a known eyewear signature is broadcasting nearby. It does not mean anyone is recording, and Bluetooth cannot reveal recording state.
• Smart glasses with Bluetooth turned off, in a case, or already paired and gone quiet may not advertise at all and will not be detected.
• This is not a hidden camera detector. It cannot find a concealed camera in a wall, a socket or a smoke alarm. It only finds wearables that announce themselves over Bluetooth.
• Distance is estimated from signal strength. Walls, bodies and interference affect it, so treat it as approximate.
• Some manufacturers share Bluetooth identifiers across product lines, so occasional false matches are possible. Sensitivity settings let you tighten this.

PRIVACY

Nearby Lens identifies device types, never people.

• No personal data is collected, stored off your device, or transmitted
• No analytics and no advertising
• No account and no sign-in
• Device identifiers are hashed on your device before being displayed
• The watch never records coordinates
• Location permission is requested only because Android requires it for Bluetooth scanning — Nearby Lens does not read, store or use your location

Free, with no ads and no in-app purchases.

By Modex Apps.