Samsung glasses already obey a rule California has not passed

Samsung's AI glasses disable recording if you cover the indicator light, which is close to what California's SB 1130 would require of any camera wearable sold in the state. The bill is not law yet, and the workaround people found on other glasses defeats the light rather than the statute.

3 min read

Samsung's AI glasses stop recording when the wearer covers the front-facing indicator light. That is one of several safeguards designed in before launch: a second LED inside the frames tells the wearer when capture is running, and wear detection cuts recording the moment the glasses come off. The glasses run Android XR on Qualcomm's Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1, and they arrive later this year in frames from Gentle Monster and Warby Parker.

California's Senate Bill 1130 would make it illegal to use a wearable to capture audio or video of someone in a business where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and illegal to manufacture or sell a device that disables the recording indicator, with fines up to $2,500. The bill is still working its way through the legislature, so the behavior it would demand is in the product before the requirement exists. People have already found ways on other camera glasses to obstruct the light while the recording keeps going, per SamMobile, and Meta spent two months patching exactly that.