NearLens, a free iOS app that quietly alerts users when smart glasses are nearby, today launches its biggest update yet: Ask AI, a natural-language assistant powered entirely by Apple Intelligence running on the iPhone. Users can now ask questions about their own Bluetooth detection history in plain English, and get answers from an on-device foundation model. No cloud, no account, no tracking.

Camera-equipped wearables are getting smaller, lighter and harder to spot. Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta, Snap Spectacles, Brilliant Labs Frame, Even Realities G1, Vuzix, XREAL and many others can record audio and video in public without anyone noticing.

NearLens gives that boundary back, without becoming yet another surveillance tool itself.

NearLens continuously scans Bluetooth Low Energy advertisements from nearby devices, then matches them against a curated database of camera-capable smart glasses based on manufacturer identifiers and device-name patterns. Every match is logged on a private timeline that lives only on the user's phone.

Supported brands include Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta, Snap Spectacles, EssilorLuxottica, Vuzix, XREAL, TCL RayNeo, Rokid, Brilliant Labs Frame, Solos AirGo Vision, Even Realities G1, Halliday, INMO Air, RealWear Navigator, Epson Moverio, Lenovo ThinkReality A3, Samsung Galaxy Glasses, and Google Android XR Glasses.

Ask AI lets users query their own detection history in plain language. Questions like "when was the last time smart glasses were near me?" or "which brand appears most often?" are answered by Apple's on-device foundation model, available on iPhone 15 Pro and newer running iOS 26 with Apple Intelligence enabled.

The defining choice: when Apple Intelligence is not available, NearLens does not fall back to a fake response. The feature is clearly marked as unavailable and the input is hidden. There is no synthetic answer dressed up as AI.

NearLens has no backend that stores user data. No account, no analytics, no third-party SDK. All scanning, logging, and AI inference happen on the iPhone itself.

• 100% on-device processing
• No servers, no analytics, no ads
• No account or sign-up required
• Detection history cleared with one tap

"A privacy app that ships its data to a server to ask AI a question would be a contradiction. With Apple Intelligence on iOS 26 we no longer have to choose. The model runs on the phone. The detections never leave the phone. That is the only honest way to do this."

NearLens is free on the App Store for iPhone. Core detection works on iOS 16 and later. Ask AI requires iPhone 15 Pro or newer running iOS 26 with Apple Intelligence enabled.

App Store · nearlens.app

NearLens is an independent iOS app designed by Marcos Rezende, inspired by an original Android concept by Yves Jeanrenaud. It is built for journalists, activists, parents, and anyone who wants to walk through public spaces with a clearer picture of what is broadcasting around them. The app collects nothing, stores nothing remotely, and answers only to the person holding the phone.

Designer and Maintainer, NearLens
Email: hello@marcosrezende.com
Website: marcosrezende.com