{"slug": "ottawa-tech-worker-builds-app-to-detect-nearby-smart-glasses", "title": "Ottawa tech worker builds app to detect nearby smart glasses", "summary": "Ottawa-based product designer Marcos Rezende launched NearLens, a free iOS app that uses Bluetooth signals to detect nearby camera-equipped smart glasses such as Ray-Ban Meta, addressing privacy concerns as daily usage of Meta's smart glasses tripled year-over-year. Rezende, a senior product designer at Kitchener-Waterloo's Hive and former Microsoft employee, built the app with AI tools in two weeks and 328 software commits, and it runs on-device with no backend, accounts, or analytics. In a test at Ottawa's TD Place Arena, NearLens detected 15 signals among 7,000 people over three hours, while a Business of Fashion-McKinsey report projects smart glasses sales to quadruple in 2026.", "body_md": "Brazilian Canadian product and user experience (UX) designer Marcos Rezende has built a new privacy-focused mobile application with AI.\n\nRezende previously worked at Microsoft and spends his days as a senior product designer at Kitchener-Waterloo event marketing platform Hive. He recently launched [NearLens](https://nearlens.app) on the side to help iPhone users navigate a world where smart glasses with cameras are becoming increasingly present and hard to spot.\n\nRezende’s free iOS app listens for Bluetooth signals associated with camera-equipped eyewear, and tracks matches in real time.\n\nIn an interview with *BetaKit*, Ottawa-based Rezende said NearLens’ focus is to give its users a signal that they are in the vicinity of camera glasses, such as Ray-Ban Meta, that could be actively recording.\n\nRezende’s free iOS app listens for Bluetooth signals associated with camera-equipped eyewear, and tracks matches in real time. As [ App Developer Magazine](https://appdevelopermagazine.com/nearlens:-smart-glasses-privacy-taken-seriously/) put it, NearLens is “a practical response to a growing gap in how smart glasses affect everyday privacy.”\n\nCamera-equipped smart glasses, and their ability to fairly easily record others without their knowledge, have spurred [backlash](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2026/08/13/the-smart-glasses-backlash-01036331) and present [new challenges](https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/article/canadian-law-faces-a-new-challenge-from-smart-glasses-what-happens-if-someone-records-you/) under Canadian privacy law.\n\nFor his part, Rezende has taken care to ensure that NearLens does not create new privacy concerns of its own. [A NearLens post](https://nearlens.app/press) claims the app does not access cameras or microphones, identify wearers, or confirm if glasses are capturing photographs and footage. Rezende said he has done this “to guarantee privacy end-to-end.”\n\nRezende shipped the first version of NearLens with the help of AI tools after 328 software commits in two weeks. He said the idea came out of a postgraduate project at Lisbon’s IADE. NearLens has “no backend at all,” does not require accounts, compile analytics, or leverage any third-party software development kits, and runs using on-device AI where available.\n\n**RELATED: Google reportedly close to buying Canada’s AdHawk for its eye-tracking smart glasses tech**\n\nRezende also plans to keep NearLens free. He sees the app as a temporary solution until society determines where it wants to allow these devices, and how it plans to approach them.\n\nFor its part, Meta [recently said](https://www.uploadvr.com/meta-smart-glasses-daily-usage-tripled-year-over-year/) daily usage of its smart glasses tripled year-over-year. Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the wearable eyewear as “one of the fastest-growing categories of consumer electronics ever.”\n\nRezende recently put NearLens to the test in four different locations to get a sense of how common they actually are at the moment. At Ottawa’s TD Place Arena, his app detected 15 signals consistent with camera-equipped smart glasses among 7,000 people over three hours. Whereas at the city’s Meridian Theatres, it returned zero matches.\n\nA recent *Business of Fashion*-McKinsey report singled out smart glasses as [poised for growth](https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/technology/the-state-of-fashion-2026-report-smart-glasses-ai-wearables/) in 2026, when analysts project sales to quadruple thanks to a bevy of sleeker, cheaper options.\n\n*With files from Jesse Cole.*\n\n*Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Redd Francisco.*", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ottawa-tech-worker-builds-app-to-detect-nearby-smart-glasses", "canonical_source": "https://betakit.com/ottawa-tech-worker-builds-app-to-detect-nearby-smart-glasses/", "published_at": "2026-08-17 11:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-17 11:11:11.818219+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-products", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Marcos Rezende", "NearLens", "Hive", "Microsoft", "Ray-Ban Meta", "Meta", "Mark Zuckerberg", "TD Place Arena"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ottawa-tech-worker-builds-app-to-detect-nearby-smart-glasses", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ottawa-tech-worker-builds-app-to-detect-nearby-smart-glasses.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ottawa-tech-worker-builds-app-to-detect-nearby-smart-glasses.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ottawa-tech-worker-builds-app-to-detect-nearby-smart-glasses.jsonld"}}