Here's how Samsung's smart glasses will keep perverts away (hopefully)

Samsung gave us another look at its upcoming Android XR glasses last week, while also disclosing a few more details. Now, the company has revealed even more information about its smart glasses.

Samsung XR executive James Choi told Samsung Newsroom that its upcoming Android XR glasses would include a few measures to combat creeps who use smart glasses to record people without their consent.

“A bystander-facing LED indicator and an inner LED clearly show when recording is active. Wear detection automatically disables recording when the glasses are removed, while a thwart detection feature disables recording if the external LED indicator is blocked,” Choi was quoted as saying.

The outward-facing LED indicator and thwart detection feature are also found on Meta’s smart glasses, but the wear detection is a pretty neat addition. This means people can’t leave the glasses somewhere (e.g., on a table) to record others. Nevertheless, I hope Samsung also includes deeper hardware safeguards to thwart mods and other tricks people might use to disable the LED.

What else to know about Samsung’s Android XR glasses?

Meta drew the ire of privacy advocates in 2024 when the company confirmed that any photos taken on its smart glasses and shared with Meta AI would be used to train its AI. However, Samsung’s executive claims that users’ audio, video, and screen-sharing data are not used to train AI. It’s unclear whether the firm is also including images in this promise, but we’ve asked Samsung to clarify this.

Samsung previously hinted that the glasses would support gesture-based interaction via connected devices, namely the Galaxy Watch 9 line. Choi elaborated on this approach.

“Users can manage the device directly from their wrist through the Galaxy Watch screen or with intuitive gestures. When Galaxy Buds are connected, they can switch audio without interrupting the experience,” he explained.

The Samsung representative also expanded on cross-device interactions with your phone:

For example, they can start recording hands-free with intelligent eyewear, preview what they have captured on Now Bar and then access it in Galaxy Gallery on their phone.

I’m not exactly sure how this Now Bar integration will look, but I’m guessing Samsung’s widget will display thumbnails or other types of info snippets (e.g., the number of photos/videos captured in a session).

These newly revealed details join a host of previously disclosed tidbits about the glasses. Samsung says you can expect up to nine hours of use, tight phone integration with the mobile device handling heavy workloads, and Qualcomm’s AR1 chipset. These Android XR-based smart glasses are scheduled to launch in the fall. So we don’t have too long to wait until all is revealed.