Meta answered its 'pervert glasses' problem with a fix and a billboard

Meta's smart glasses just got a firmware update that closes a loophole. Alex Himel, the company's vice president of augmented reality, announced the change on Threads: "The camera will now stop working if the light is covered during a recording."

The patch targets a specific workaround. The glasses already disabled their cameras when the capture LED was covered before a recording started, but wearers found they could start recording first and cover the light afterward. This update shuts that down, about a month after Meta shipped another fix for physical tampering with the light.

The repeat-fix pattern Meta can't quite escape

Himel frames the update as the system working as intended: "Only a tiny minority of people try to get around these protections, and the fact they have to go to these lengths shows our efforts are working." That is one way to read it. The other is that the company has now shipped two consecutive fixes for ways people found to hide that they were recording, which is a strange thing to need to do twice.

The glasses carry baggage the firmware alone can't shake. The Verge reports that privacy and harassment concerns have built up around them, with some wearers recording others without consent and filming "pranks" on random bystanders. A reported facial recognition feature in the works has added to the unease, and a global campaign has formed against the product. None of that context is addressed by a camera-shutdown check.

Selling the fix

Meta is now pushing its own narrative. Spokesperson Albert Aydin tells The Verge the company is running a campaign in communities "where glasses sales have been popular." A billboard in Los Angeles shows the glasses next to the line: "The camera lets you capture the moment. The light lets everyone around you know when you do." A video from the company repeats the same promise: no light, no capture. The campaign is running just as the category fills up: Samsung entered the AI glasses race in July.

The messaging is smart and the timing is not subtle. Meta needs the LED to be understood as a feature, not a compromise, at the exact moment the product line is adding facial recognition capabilities. The rest of the glasses market is arguing about hardware: Viture's $299.99 Pro 2 won over The Verge with sharpness.

But the campaign can't manufacture what the fix can't guarantee: confidence. Each patch closes the loophole that exists today, and the belief that the capture light is trustworthy rests on there not being another one tomorrow.