- Many modders are charging $50 to $100 to physically destroy the recording LED on Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, creating an undetected “stealth mode.”
- While Meta’s software blocks low-tech cover-ups like tape, physically drilling out the LED severs the circuitry without triggering the camera lockout warning.
- The demand for modifications is heavily driven by content creators secretly filming strangers for viral trends
Meta and EssilorLuxottica finally hit a goldmine with the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The companies reportedly sold over 7 million pairs in 2025 alone, doing what Google Glass never could: making wearable tech look genuinely fashionable. But as with any piece of tech that achieves massive mainstream scale, the compromises and edge cases are starting to catch up. A new report from Joanna Stern is shedding light on a rapidly growing underground industry dedicated to turning these everyday smart glasses into covert spy gear.
On a standard pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses, the right side houses the camera lens, while the left side features a prominent capture LED. Whenever you record a video or go live, that light pulses to signal to the people around you that they’re on camera.
