As I’ve learned about what big tech companies are doing with everyone’s data it really started to creep me out. I’ve heard about ex boyfriends/husbands and girlfriends/wives getting pretty creepy on the spying thing. Even when still together many couples have problems on that front. There was a show a long time back I saw on TV, when that was a part of my life, and a paranoid person would send out a private investigator to catch their partner cheating. The types of things that a paranoid partner does is pretty similar to what big tech does. They put bugs around to listen in, cameras around to watch, and spyware to see what online activity and communication is going on. At the end of some of the investigations there was nothing found and it played cute music and tried to show a happy ending. Some of them weren’t happy about their partner spying on them and it ended the relationship anyways. Which is understandable, it’s creepy stuff to have someone prying into your life and watching your every move to report back to your partner or anyone else for that matter.

Big tech is gathering metadata from all sources it can. This information is prime for surveillance. It might not have all of the specific content but it has a whole lot of the overall picture. Where you have been and for how long, patterns of travel, often your exact location at all times, where you spend money and often how much, who you talk to and for how long, what you search for on the internet, what websites you visit, and much more. With all of that they can put together a pretty comprehensive profile on an individual. I find all of this very creepy and over the top. In some countries they give a little more privacy protection and tools – which is nice.

Around the world and especially in the USA there is a lot of PPP’s or public-private partnerships. The government really does not want to limit corporate data mining (spying) all that much because it wants that data as well. Some countries limit their own spying so that they look good to their own people, but then get that data from allied nations. I’ve read that Israel does a whole lot of data mining around the globe and shares (maybe sells) that data to many nations. The majority of the planet is blackmailed at least a little bit. Even if it’s nothing illegal some personal information can be embarrassing, career ending, divorce enduing, and so on.

Recently I was given a package that was put together by the local government. They had detailed areal photos of our homestead. They want us to comply with some regulatory house stuff. We were out of compliance and now I’m fixing some things to help alleviate their worries. I’m not worried, my neighbors aren’t worried, the owner of the property we live on isn’t worried, no one is really worried except these weird people that call themselves government. But I was thinking about it and it really is an invasion on privacy and pretty creepy. Just like that whole spying on us that the corporations do is creepy. Bunch of creepers.

What if your neighbor put a GPS tracker on you and your car and logged everywhere you have been. What if they had spyware on your phone and computer to track everyone you communicated with and how long. What if they put together a list of everything you ever searched for and what websites you go to and what you watch. What if they also paid attention to how much you spend and where. What if one went so far as to fly a drone over your house looking for anything they didn’t like. Afterwards they put together a package telling you what they wanted to you fix. What if all of these neighbors shared that information with one another and even sold it. A little creepy? I think a lot creepy.

So if our neighbors really shouldn’t do any of this why do we turn a blind eye towards corporations and government enforcement agents doing invasive and creepy things? Maybe humanity should have a higher standard for what we passively and happily tolerate and even actively support. You know that overall Google, Facebook/Meta, Apple, and Verizon aren’t mandatory services? You can stop supporting their invasive actions by not using their services and products. Of course they are embedded in many 3rd party sites, services, and products (especially Google and Facebook) but much of that is optional and you can block a lot of that with VPN’s, solid browsers, anonymous search engines, and better operating systems. It’s true we may not be able to opt out of all government invasive creepy things at this stage of human development. But maybe if enough people started to see it for what it is, a creepy group of neighbors teaming up to sign bills that makes them think they have the authority to put together an extended creeper neighbor network to threaten the common man with fines, loss of property, to be put into little cages, or even killed if anyone resists. Maybe if people saw through all that humanity wouldn’t be so complacent and complicit.

I think the standard should be something like this. If you and I cannot do such a thing to our neighbor, then perhaps government cannot do such a thing to you and I. The act of neighbor/group/mob/government intervention should be used very lightly. Seems to me it’s used far too regularly and over far too many things. I also believe privacy should be taken more seriously. We ought to be able to opt out of corporate data-mining schemes and get profiles deleted if we don’t want these corporations to have them. There are many good books on this subject and smarter people than me have a lot to say on ideas for privacy laws in our current high tech low cost storage type of world.

Check out an older post linked below on solutions on the tech side of things if interested – some books are listed in there. New people see this blog often enough that it's worth reminding about that post in my view – solutions are important. I might update it some this winter, I’ve learned a lot since writing it but it’s still solid information.

DIY Tech Privacy

On a summer afternoon in August 2026, families at the Frog Pond on Boston Common were doing what families do at a spray pool. Children ran through the water. Parents held up towels so that small bodies could be changed out of wet swimwear. And according to witnesses who later spoke to police, a man in sunglasses was watching them through a camera.

The witnesses said he had been recording children on the playground, both with a phone and with a pair of camera-equipped sunglasses. Some said he followed a family who had been changing their children behind towels, scanning the children up and down with the glasses. When people confronted him, he took the glasses off and tried to snap them with his hands. Police seized the glasses and the phone. The man, a 60-year-old from Brockton, is a registered sex offender. In September he was arraigned on 69 further charges relating to photographing the intimate parts of children, and he pleaded not guilty. Nothing has been proved in court.

What makes the case so unsettling is not that a predator found a new tool. Predators have always found new tools. It is that the tool looked like nothing at all. A camera held up to a changing child is an obvious threat that any parent can see and act on. A pair of sunglasses is not. The incident, as Joy Buolamwini wrote in Nature in October, illustrates how such devices can subject bystanders to “intrusive surveillance without their knowledge or consent.” On this occasion, other people at the pool saw what was happening and stepped in.

That is the problem in miniature. Most of us move through public space on an unspoken assumption: we can see who is looking at us and roughly how. Smart glasses quietly break that assumption, and they are doing it at a scale, and with a degree of artificial intelligence, that the people who wrote our privacy laws never imagined. On 13 October 2026, Europe's data protection regulators finally put on paper what that means for the people on the other side of the lens.

Eight Pages From Brussels

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB), the body that brings together the European Union's national data protection authorities, adopted Statement 1/2026 on smart glasses at its October plenary. It is short: eight pages, 36 numbered paragraphs, signed by the board's chair, Anu Talus. It is described as preliminary. It is also, read carefully, one of the bluntest documents a European regulator has produced about a consumer product category.

Start with the controller question, which is the legal way of asking who is responsible. The board accepts that a wearer filming a friend for a private family chat may fall under the GDPR's household exemption. But it insists that exemption “must, however, be narrowly construed,” and that it vanishes when footage goes to a public social media account or the glasses are used for professional or political purposes. More importantly, it states that the GDPR still applies to the companies that supply the means of processing, even when the wearer is exempt. When a manufacturer or AI provider analyses an image from the glasses' camera “in which other persons appear,” it can be a controller in its own right. And controllers, the statement says, “should not rely on the users' actions to meet their own GDPR obligations, such as transparency toward other individuals whose data might be processed.”

The press release put it more plainly: neither the producer nor the provider of a linked service “can transfer their obligations to users.”

Then comes transparency, and here the board is almost confessional. “The current state of the art with regards to indicators on smart glasses leave many non-users unaware that their data is being processed,” it says. Privacy notices, the standard legal fix, “do not seem sufficient or appropriate to inform non-users,” because a manufacturer has no relationship with the stranger on the pavement and no way to contact them.

Consent fares no better. Where a manufacturer or AI provider processes data about non-users with whom it has no relationship, the board says it “would be difficult to obtain their freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous consent.” It closes an obvious loophole too: “Consent obtained after collection, for example following the recording, would not be valid.” You cannot film first and ask later.

That leaves legitimate interest, the flexible legal basis on which much of the data economy runs. The board does not rule it out. It does say that, given “the current insufficient transparency,” the balancing test “would be particularly difficult to demonstrate for further processing for commercial purposes that go beyond providing the service explicitly requested by the end-user, or for AI training, which bystanders wouldn't expect, especially if they are not aware of the initial data collection.”

Read that sentence again and notice what it targets. Not the snapshot of a sunset. Not the translation of a menu. It targets the business model: the reuse of what the glasses see to improve products and train models.

And then, in paragraph 8, the board steps outside the usual vocabulary of data protection altogether. Even when a device can be identified as smart glasses, it says, people may object simply because they are uncomfortable with the possibility of being recorded. “This could also result in a subtle social effect, where individuals alter their behaviour, suppress spontaneity, and conform to social norms perceived to be more socially acceptable due to their perceived threat of unvetted surveillance.”

That is not a sentence about data. It is a sentence about what public life feels like.

Who Notices the Little White Light

The industry's answer to the bystander problem has, for five years, been a light. Ray-Ban Meta glasses carry a small LED on the front of the frame that glows when the camera is capturing. Meta designed the glasses so that they stop recording if the light is covered with tape. The EDPB now wants considerably more: indicators “visible in many lighting conditions,” audio cues such as a shutter click, voice activation so that commands are spoken aloud, opt-in smartphone alerts, and frame designs that make smart glasses easier to tell apart from ordinary ones. It says these measures should be “impossible or difficult to disable (taking into account the state of the art)” and adds, pointedly, that “it should not be possible to record information when the indicator is covered.”

The footnotes are where the board's scepticism shows. Producers, it notes, should consider that LEDs may be invisible to people with visual impairments, and “that a white LED generally could be mistaken for a reflection or solar glare.” On a bright day, in other words, the main safeguard can look exactly like sunshine.

The light can also simply be removed. In October 2025, 404 Media reported that a hobbyist named Bong Kim was charging $60 to modify Ray-Ban Meta glasses so that the recording LED no longer lit up, while the glasses otherwise worked normally. The modification got around the tape-detection safeguard by changing the hardware rather than covering the light. Meta has since said it is cracking down on tampering services, and in July 2026 The Next Web reported that the company was patching its glasses to disable the camera if the light was tampered with. When Paris prosecutors announced in September 2026 that they had opened several investigations into women being filmed on the street without consent, Agence France-Presse reported Meta's response: that it had taken multiple steps to prevent tampering with the light.

Even an untampered light runs into a deeper limit, one that no firmware update can fix. A light only works if the person who sees it knows what it means. Researchers at Tsinghua University put that to the test.

Wearers and Bystanders Want Different Things

Their study was presented at CHI 2026, the leading academic conference on human-computer interaction, held in Barcelona in April. Its title is “Mind the Gap: Mapping Wearer-Bystander Privacy Tensions and Context-Adaptive Pathways for Camera Glasses,” and its authors are Xueyang Wang, Xin Yi and Hewu Li of Tsinghua University, with Kewen Peng of the University of Utah.

The first part of the research was a survey of 525 people in China: 232 current or potential wearers and 293 people who might find themselves on the other side of the lens. Each participant was given a short primer on how the devices work, including where the LED sits, and then shown six everyday scenarios. A travel vlog on a street. Shopping in a mall. A meeting with colleagues. A hospital consultation. A private party. A workout at a gym.

The pattern is stark. Wearers rated recording as reasonable in every scenario, including the gym among strangers. Bystanders reported significantly more privacy concern than wearers overall. When the researchers asked what bystanders expected and what wearers were willing to give, two gaps were statistically significant: bystanders wanted tighter control over how footage is shared, and they expected prior consent far more than wearers were prepared to seek it. The gym produced the widest gaps of all, and the hospital was not far behind. As the authors put it, the disparity grows in sensitive contexts “where bystanders' vulnerability peaks while wearers' willingness plateaus.”

Then there is what bystanders said they would actually do. Across the scenarios, between 65 and 90 per cent said they would take some form of defensive action. Camera avoidance was the most common response, chosen by between 52 and 80 per cent, peaking at 80 per cent in the mall. Nonverbal protest came next, at 31 to 51 per cent. Direct intervention, asking the wearer to stop recording or delete footage, was chosen by roughly a quarter to a half of participants depending on the setting. Passive acceptance was rare, at 10 to 15 per cent, except in the workplace meeting, where it rose to 35 per cent.

The LED did not reassure anyone. Only 41.3 per cent of bystanders and 35.3 per cent of wearers thought it was sufficient, and just 6.1 per cent of bystanders believed an LED alone was enough. Participants said it was too small, invisible in bright light, meaningless to people unfamiliar with the devices, and easy to block. One researcher interviewed for the study summed it up: the light “deters the honest but not the malicious.”

The finding that matters most for the burden question is about familiarity. You might assume the gap is just novelty, and that bystanders will relax once smart glasses become as normal as phones. The data says otherwise. Bystanders' concern stayed high at every level of familiarity, while wearers grew less concerned the more they used the devices. Experience widened the gap rather than closing it. The authors conclude that the gaps “reflect structural incompatibilities rather than inadequate goodwill.”

The study was conducted in China, and the authors are careful to say privacy norms differ between cultures. But the structure of the finding is not culturally specific. The person wearing a camera and the person in front of it are in different positions, and those positions produce different interests. Etiquette campaigns will not bridge that.

How Private Glasses Feed a Public Market

None of this would matter much if smart glasses were a niche toy. They are not. Buolamwini's Nature piece, published on 6 October 2026, reports that more than eight million smart glasses were shipped in 2025 and that by June 2026, sales of AI-equipped models had “reportedly risen by more than 700%” on the previous year. The first figure is well supported: the analyst firm Omdia counted 8.7 million AI glasses shipped globally in 2025, a 322 per cent increase, with Meta taking 85.2 per cent of the market. The second figure is harder to trace. Nature gives no primary source, and the growth figures published by market trackers vary widely with what they measure. Counterpoint Research, for instance, reported that global AI glasses shipments rose 263 per cent year on year in the first half of 2026. Whichever number you prefer, the curve is steep, and Omdia expects shipments to pass 15 million in 2026.

Scale matters because of what sits behind the lens. In April 2025, Meta told Ray-Ban Meta owners that AI features with camera use would be enabled by default unless they switched off the “Hey Meta” wake word, and that voice recordings would be stored to improve its products without an option to opt out, according to reporting by TechCrunch and others. Transcripts and recordings could be kept for up to a year, and owners who did not want their voice used for training had to delete recordings one by one. Those changes concern the wearer's data. But a camera pointed at a street does not capture only the wearer.

Then there is identification. In 2024, two Harvard students, AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, built a demonstration system called I-XRAY. It streamed video from Ray-Ban Meta glasses to Instagram, used software to detect faces, ran them through the face search engine PimEyes, and pulled names, addresses and other details from people-search sites. The students said they would not release the code; the point was to show how easily off-the-shelf tools combine. In February 2026, The New York Times reported that Meta was planning a facial recognition feature for its glasses, known internally as “Name Tag,” which would let wearers identify people through Meta's AI assistant. According to the Times, an internal memo suggested launching “during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.” Meta's plans, the reports noted, could change.

The EDPB saw this coming. Pairing smart glasses with facial or voice recognition, it wrote, “raises unprecedented questions regarding societal choices and poses a high risk to the rights and freedoms in public spaces.”

Put these pieces together and the idea of ordinary eyewear that can silently record, analyse and identify every person in the wearer's field of view stops sounding like hyperbole. Not every pair does all three today. The direction of travel is clear, though, and the hardware already in circulation is what tomorrow's software will run on.

What Happens to a Street That Might Be Recording

Which brings us to the first big question. What does all this do to the texture of public life when ordinary eyewear can record, analyse and potentially identify everyone in view, and nobody can tell whether it is doing so?

The sociologist Erving Goffman gave us the vocabulary in 1963. In his study of how strangers conduct themselves in public places, he described “civil inattention,” the small ritual by which strangers acknowledge each other with a glance and then look away. It is how a crowded street stays bearable. I see you; I am not going to examine you. The urbanist Jane Jacobs, writing two years earlier in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, made a related point about “eyes on the street”: the informal, mutual watching of neighbours and passers-by that keeps a city safe. Both describe a kind of looking that is reciprocal, fleeting and, crucially, visible. You can see the eyes that are on the street. They are attached to people you could look back at.

Camera glasses change both halves of that bargain. The glance that used to end in looking away can now be stored, replayed, shared and searched. And the eyes on the street are no longer necessarily attached to a person who is present. They might belong to an AI model on a server, a TikTok audience, or a face-search engine. Civil inattention depends on the other person choosing not to keep what they see. A device that keeps everything by default removes that choice from the encounter entirely.

We already know what this does to behaviour, because we have seen it online. In a 2016 study in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Jon Penney found a statistically significant drop in traffic to Wikipedia articles on privacy-sensitive topics after the 2013 revelations about NSA surveillance. The articles themselves had not changed. People's sense of being watched had. That is the chilling effect: not punishment, but the quiet edit people make to their own behaviour when they suspect an audience.

The EDPB's paragraph 8 is the physical-world version of that finding, and the evidence that it is already happening is accumulating. In August 2026, researchers at the University of Sydney published early findings from an analysis of 350 publicly available Instagram videos, posted between 2023 and 2026 and linked to pick-up artist communities. In a subset of covert point-of-view videos, around 60 per cent of interactions were classified as potential harassment, and in about 43 per cent of the videos women were exposed to abusive comments, some of which revealed personal details. The researchers found covert filming in workplaces, gyms and beaches. “Smart glasses have given pickup artists a new tool to further exploit women,” said Milica Stilinovic, a postdoctoral research associate on the project.

The BBC reported in 2026 on a woman in London who discovered that a stranger who had chatted to her near a shopping centre had filmed the whole encounter through smart glasses and posted it online, where it drew tens of thousands of views. In Paris, prosecutors described a “growing trend on social media involving women being filmed on the street.”

The CHI survey shows what the defensive response looks like in aggregate: most bystanders say they would avoid the camera, a third to a half would protest without words, and a substantial share would confront the wearer. Those are the behaviours of people who no longer trust the encounter. And the EDPB's list of sensitive settings, from medical facilities to swimming pools, is a list of exactly the places where people most need to be unguarded. Public space does not empty. It flattens. People become slightly more guarded, slightly more performative, slightly less willing to do the unplanned thing. That is what “suppress spontaneity” means in practice.

The cruellest part is that the effect does not require anyone to be recording. It only requires that recording be possible and impossible to detect. A street where one person in a hundred wears camera glasses is, from the bystander's point of view, a street where anyone might be. The chilling effect is a product of uncertainty, not of footage. You cannot opt out of uncertainty by checking for a light that may not be there.

There is a fairness issue, too. Smart glasses have genuine benefits, and the EDPB lists some of them, including audio assistance and hazard awareness for people with disabilities. Hamburg's proposed restrictions on wearing them in pools and public transport have reportedly included exemptions for people who rely on them for medical or accessibility reasons. Those uses deserve protection. But the benefits go to the wearer, while the costs of uncertainty fall on everybody else in the room. That asymmetry is the root of the burden problem.

Why Neither Wearer Nor Bystander Can Carry It

The second big question starts from a premise: that the burden of informing bystanders cannot realistically fall on either the wearer or the bystander. Is that premise right? The evidence says yes, for different reasons in each case.

Start with the wearer. The EDPB does say that users “should always ensure that they respect the privacy and dignity of other individuals,” and that explicitly telling people you are using smart glasses is relevant. That is good manners. As a system for protecting the public, it fails three times over. It fails on scale: you cannot announce yourself to every passer-by in a station. It fails on incentive: the CHI data shows wearers consistently willing to give less than bystanders want, and growing less concerned with use. And it fails catastrophically on bad actors. The man at the Frog Pond did not intend to tell anybody anything. Any safeguard that depends on the wearer's goodwill protects people only from wearers who were never the danger.

Now the bystander. The research community has proposed plenty of tools to help people defend themselves: gestures that signal “do not record me,” wearable markers that ask cameras to blur you, apps that negotiate consent. The CHI team had experts and experienced users evaluate twelve such privacy-enhancing technologies and found what they called a “fundamental paradox”: empowering bystanders “requires burdening them with responsibilities that should belong to those creating privacy risks.” Participants were blunter. One described gesture-based refusal as “transferring the burden to the victim.” Another asked, of awareness tools in general: “What's the point of awareness? I know, but can I stop it?”

The EDPB reaches the same conclusion from the legal side. Smartphone alerts that detect nearby glasses, it says, “should not be the sole method of providing transparency,” because that would exclude anyone without the app running and would make a stranger's privacy depend on their own technical diligence. Children, it adds, “may be less aware of the presence or implications of smart glasses and therefore more vulnerable.” A toddler at a spray pool cannot install an app.

So the premise holds. If the burden of informing bystanders cannot sit with the wearer or the bystander, it has to sit somewhere else. The EDPB's answer is the manufacturer and the AI service provider. The question is whether that answer actually solves the problem.

Does Moving the Burden to Manufacturers Fix Anything

Here is my position. Placing the burden on manufacturers is the right move and an incomplete one. As the EDPB has framed it, an obligation of transparency, it mostly identifies who is accountable for a harm that will keep happening. It becomes a real solution only to the extent that accountability is turned into hard constraints on what the product can do, and even then a residue of harm is unavoidable for as long as a camera can look like a pair of glasses.

Begin with what the shift does achieve, because it is not nothing. The manufacturer is the only party that can change the product. It decides whether the LED is bright or faint, whether the camera works when the light is broken, whether bystanders' faces are blurred on the device before anything reaches a server, whether footage is stored by default, whether face matching exists at all. The EDPB's recommendations are a menu of exactly those choices: on-device processing, blurring or avoiding processing of bystanders' identities, persistent storage disabled by default for real-time assistance, geofencing in sensitive places, and “privacy frictions” that slow down sharing. Every one of those is a design decision only a manufacturer can make. Assigning the obligation to the company that controls the design is not a technicality. It is the only assignment that matches responsibility to power.

The legitimate interest paragraph may matter even more. If commercial reuse and AI training on bystander data are “particularly difficult to demonstrate” as lawful, then the most valuable part of the footage, its afterlife as training material, becomes the most legally exposed. That attacks the incentive that makes always-on capture attractive in the first place. A company that cannot monetise the street has less reason to see it all.

Now the limits, and they are serious.

First, transparency is not protection. The EDPB's main ask is that bystanders be told. But telling someone they are being recorded does not stop them being recorded, which is precisely the point the CHI participant made. A brighter light turns covert surveillance into overt surveillance, which is an improvement, and then hands the bystander the same impossible choice: confront a stranger, leave, or put up with it. The CHI data suggests most people will avoid the camera, which is the chilling effect in a different form. Perfect transparency would make it clear who is watching. It would not make the street feel unwatched.

Second, manufacturer accountability does not reach the people causing the worst harm. The tampering market shows how quickly a hardware safeguard becomes a $60 problem. And a design rule binds only the companies a regulator can actually reach, which is not the same as every company whose products end up on European faces. The person who films children at a pool is not going to be deterred by a design standard. What the manufacturer framework catches is the mainstream product used by mainstream people, which is valuable but is not where the most serious incidents begin.

Third, the framework is preliminary guidance, not law. The statement interprets the GDPR; enforcement depends on national regulators bringing cases. And where legislators have tried to write hard rules, they have struggled. In California, State Senator Eloise Gómez Reyes's SB 1130 would have required wearable recording devices sold in the state to carry a prominent recording indicator from 2028, banned technology designed to conceal it, and penalised covert recording in private areas of businesses. It passed both chambers comfortably. On 30 September 2026, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it, saying its definition of a wearable recording device was too broad and noting that existing law already covers recording in private spaces. TechNet, a trade group whose members include Meta, Google and Amazon, had opposed it. When the EDPB adopted its statement two weeks later, it pointed to the bill in a footnote as an example of legislation under discussion elsewhere.

Fourth, and most fundamentally, there is the residue. Even a perfect manufacturer regime, with unmissable indicators, no tampering, no default storage, no face matching and no training on bystanders, still leaves a world in which some people wear cameras on their faces and everyone else has to think about it. The EDPB's paragraph 8 concedes this directly: people may object “even if the device could be identifiable as smart glasses,” simply because the possibility makes them uncomfortable. That discomfort is not a compliance failure. It is the cost of the capability existing in that form at all. No allocation of legal duties can remove it. It can only decide who answers for it.

So does placing the burden on the manufacturer merely identify who is accountable for an unavoidable harm? Partly, yes. Part of the harm is unavoidable, and we should stop pretending otherwise. But identifying the accountable party is how the avoidable part gets avoided. The honest framing is that the manufacturer burden is necessary but not sufficient, and its value depends entirely on whether regulators treat transparency as the end of the obligation or the beginning.

What would make it sufficient, or close to it? Two things the EDPB gestures at but does not yet demand. The first is substantive limits rather than just disclosure: no identification of strangers, no training on bystander footage without a lawful basis that genuinely exists, cameras that fail closed when tampered with. The second is protection that attaches to places rather than people. Buolamwini's proposal in Nature, “consent-conscious spaces” such as schools, hospitals, courts and swimming pools “in which covert recording is prohibited by law,” is one version. The EDPB's own list of sensitive contexts (medical facilities, schools, changing rooms, swimming pools, beaches, toilets) is another. Hamburg's proposals for pools and public transport are a third. Norway's is a fourth, and the broadest yet. On 5 October 2026 its government said it would ask parliament for a temporary ban on smart glasses in certain public places, starting with spaces where children gather, such as schools, kindergartens, playgrounds and youth clubs, and possibly extending to parks, beaches, museums, shopping centres, concerts and sports events. It is not a blanket ban: private use would still be allowed, and exemptions for vulnerable groups and “socially beneficial uses” are being considered. It is also, for now, only a proposal. But it is a government choosing to protect places rather than waiting for people to protect themselves. The CHI researchers reached the same place from the design side, recommending “automatic protection in sensitive contexts” rather than case-by-case negotiation.

Some of this is already happening without waiting for Brussels. In August 2026, HM Courts and Tribunals Service confirmed that people bringing Meta smart glasses into courts and tribunals in England and Wales “will have them confiscated on entry,” following a High Court case in which a litigant was found to have been coached through his glasses during cross-examination. New York's court system had already taken similar action. Spaces are starting to defend themselves, one door at a time.

The Street Worth Keeping

Go back to the Frog Pond. What protected the children there, to the extent anything did, was not an LED, a privacy notice or a design standard. It was other adults who noticed something wrong and said so. That is Jacobs's “eyes on the street” working as she described. It is also a reminder of how fragile it is. Nothing in the reports suggests his glasses announced anything; witnesses noticed what he was doing. Next time, the device will be smaller, the behaviour more careful, and the footage uploaded before anyone has time to object.

The EDPB statement is important because it refuses the comfortable fiction that the wearer can be trusted to manage this, or that the bystander can be expected to. It points to the only party with the power to change the product. Anu Talus put the principle simply in the board's announcement: “individuals deserve clear warnings, not hidden surprises.” That is right as far as it goes. But a warning is not a refusal, and a street full of clear warnings is still a street where people check themselves before they laugh too loudly or speak too freely.

The real question smart glasses put to us is not who should fill in the paperwork. It is which parts of public life we are willing to let become permanently recordable, and which we intend to keep for the glance that ends in looking away. Manufacturers can be made to answer for the first. The second is a choice for the rest of us, and it is one we are making right now, mostly by not making it.

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References and Sources

1. European Data Protection Board. “Statement 1/2026 on Smart Glasses.” Adopted 13 October 2026. Signed by Anu Talus, Chair. 8 pp. https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/2026-10/20261310_edpb_statement_smart-glasses_en.pdf
2. European Data Protection Board. “EDPB publishes statement on the data protection challenges of smart glasses.” Press release, Brussels, 13 October 2026. https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/edpb-publishes-statement-on-the-data-protection-challenges-of-smart-glasses_en
3. Wang, Xueyang; Peng, Kewen; Yi, Xin; Li, Hewu. “Mind the Gap: Mapping Wearer-Bystander Privacy Tensions and Context-Adaptive Pathways for Camera Glasses.” Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26), Barcelona, 13 to 17 April 2026. ACM. DOI: 10.1145/3772318.3791848. Preprint: arXiv:2603.04930, 5 March 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.04930
4. Buolamwini, Joy. “Why smart glasses are about to create a major privacy crisis.” Nature 658, 296 (2026), published 6 October 2026. DOI: 10.1038/d41586-026-03131-x. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03131-x
5. Fortier, Marc; Klein, Asher. “Sex offender recorded kids with camera sunglasses at Boston's Frog Pond, police say.” NBC Boston, 18 August 2026. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/sex-offender-secretly-recorded-kids-with-camera-sunglasses-at-bostons-frog-pond-police-say/3999571/
6. McKinley Becker, Kaitlin; Kwangwari, Munashe. “Sex offender who recorded kids at Boston's Frog Pond faces additional charges.” NBC Boston, 15 September 2026 (updated 18 September 2026). https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/boston-frog-pond-sex-offender-mark-sullivan-court-appearance/4014933/
7. Boston.com. “Sex offender allegedly uses camera sunglasses to record children at Boston Common's Frog Pond.” 18 August 2026. https://www.boston.com/news/crime/2026/08/18/sex-offender-allegedly-uses-camera-sunglasses-to-record-children-at-boston-commons-frog-pond/
8. Omdia. “Global AI glasses shipments reach 8.7 million units with Mainland China emerging as the fastest-growing market.” Press release, 5 March 2026. https://omdia.tech.informa.com/pr/2026/mar/global-ai-glasses-shipments-reach-8point7-million-units-with-mainland-china-emerging-as-the-fastest-growing-market
9. Counterpoint Research. “Global AI Glasses Shipments Surge 263% YoY in H1 2026, with Display-less AI Glasses Accounting for 96% of Total.” 21 September 2026. https://counterpointresearch.com/en/insights/global-ai-glasses-shipments-surge-263-percent-yoy-with-display-less-ai-glasses
10. Cox, Joseph; Koebler, Jason. “A $60 Mod to Meta's Ray-Bans Disables Its Privacy-Protecting Recording Light.” 404 Media, 23 October 2025. https://www.404media.co/how-to-disable-meta-rayban-led-light/
11. Agence France-Presse. “French prosecutors probe secret filming of women with smart glasses.” The Star (Malaysia), 24 September 2026. https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2026/09/24/french-prosecutors-probe-secret-filming-of-women-with-smart-glasses (see also South China Morning Post, https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3368459/france-prosecutors-probe-secret-filming-women-smart-glasses)
12. Silberling, Amanda. “If you own Ray-Ban Meta glasses, you should double-check your privacy settings.” TechCrunch, 30 April 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/30/if-you-own-ray-ban-meta-glasses-you-should-double-check-your-privacy-settings
13. Malik, Aisha. “Meta plans to add facial recognition to its smart glasses, report claims.” TechCrunch, 13 February 2026 (reporting The New York Times). https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/13/meta-plans-to-add-facial-recognition-to-its-smart-glasses-report-claims/
14. The Boston Globe. “AI and Meta smart glasses can turn a person's photo into personal info, Harvard students find.” 4 October 2024. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/10/04/business/harvard-students-ai-meta-glasses/
15. University of Sydney. “Smart glasses pose new harassment risks for women, researchers find.” News release, 11 August 2026. https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2026/08/11/smart-glasses-pose-new-harassment-risks-for-women-research-meta.html
16. Futurism. “Man Wearing Smart Glasses Secretly Records Woman, Demands Money to Delete Video From His Socials” (reporting a BBC investigation). 9 May 2026. https://futurism.com/future-society/man-smart-glasses-records-woman-demands-money
17. Austin, Sophie (Associated Press). “Newsom vetoes measure that would have penalized the use of smart glasses to secretly record people.” LAist, 1 October 2026. https://laist.com/news/politics/newsom-vetoes-measure-that-would-have-penalized-the-use-of-smart-glasses-to-secretly-record-people
18. Kuo, Jordan. “California's Capture-Indicator Mandate Died on the Governor's Desk, Weeks Before Samsung's Glasses Are Due.” VR.org, 1 October 2026. https://vr.org/articles/california-sb-1130-veto-capture-indicator-mandate-2026
19. Legal Cheek. “Courts ban Meta glasses.” 13 August 2026. https://www.legalcheek.com/2026/08/courts-ban-meta-glasses/
20. The Next Web. “Meta patches the mod that turned its Ray-Ban glasses into secret spy cams.” 9 July 2026. https://thenextweb.com/news/meta-ray-ban-privacy-light-fix-cameraless
21. TechCentral.ie. “Hamburg wants to ban smart glasses in swimming pools and public transport.” 2026. https://www.techcentral.ie/hamburg-wants-to-ban-smart-glasses-in-swimming-pools-and-public-transport/
22. Penney, Jonathon. “Chilling Effects: Online Surveillance and Wikipedia Use.” Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2016). SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2769645
23. Goffman, Erving. Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: The Free Press, 1963.
24. Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1961. See also NPR, “'Eyes On The Street' Details Jane Jacobs' Efforts To Put Cities First,” 28 September 2016. https://www.npr.org/2016/09/28/495615064/eyes-on-the-street-details-jane-jacobs-efforts-to-put-cities-first
25. Keaten, Jamey (Associated Press). “Norway seeks temporary ban on smart glasses as privacy concerns rise.” News4JAX, 5 October 2026. https://www.news4jax.com/tech/2026/10/05/norway-seeks-temporary-ban-on-smart-glasses-as-privacy-concerns-rise/ (see also TechSpot, https://www.techspot.com/news/114109-norway-wants-temporarily-ban-smart-glasses-parks-beaches.html)

---

Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

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It's not a comfort zone if it's not comfortable.

I think I slept around 17 of the last 24 hours, and I'm still tired though it was definitely a restful, deep sleep. I should have seen it coming. I do this every year when my UV intake goes up. Yet every year it takes me by surprise.

I have vague in and out impressions. There were dreams and there was hives. There was trying to do some paperwork and reading, but I just kept waking up hoping I didn't hit the wrong button. Inevitably, I gave up.

I've been awake constantly for around six hours now, and I can feel myself beginning to get pulled back under. I really need to do some more research as the sun did not always kick my ass so badly. Then again, I've always been more of the nocturnal persuasion.

I should probably just allow my body to sleep and do its healing thing before I break out into hives again. I have placed myself on a UV acclimation schedule. I am determined not to get annoyed with myself if this means much more sleeping for the next few weeks. I jokingly say that it's just balancing out all the insomnia, but I know that isn't the case. Luckily, anyone I normally communicate with knows that if I'm having sun time to expect me to crash out for a while. The burning/itching is no joke. If I have to cut my nails off again I will get annoyed.

I think that's all I have for the day. Let's see... Politics = grrrrrrr! “Humanitarian” is on equal grounds with “humane”. As in, “Look at all the thoughtless humans creating egocentric words to make themselves feel better about what rotten creatures they are.” Please stop showing MAGA thoughts on the news. They make my brain hurt. Literally. That's really all I have off the top of my head.

Nope. Must end on a positive. Let's see... I've been enjoying learning about the variety of planets being discovered. There's a “True Facts” episode out that I've not watched yet. And I'm proud of myself for...for...for...hehehe for remembering to put clothes on before opening the door to get my package in my sleepy stupor. I almost didn't. My hand was on the doorknob when I remembered my neighbor's doorcam and decided to finger-comb my hair. One point for vanity keeping my nudes from going wherever such photos go.😸

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

Too tired to proof.

In Summary: * “Congratulations on winning the 1st place in the mini-tournament: for jane,” was the message waiting for me when I checked into one of my CC clubs today. That was a nice surprise. There were 11 of us of roughly equal strength playing in the “for jane” mini-tournament which started on 10 Jan. of this year and ended yesterday. We were playing with a comfortable time control of 9 days allowed per move.

I was almost as happy at that as I was when the a/c in this trailer was fixed this morning at ~11:00. Almost. The tech guy who fixed it said that they like to keep the units here running year round at a “normal” temperature of 70 degrees. I think can live with that quite happily. We'll see how my energy bill likes it.

Now I've got meds to take, prayers to do, and a college football game to listen to, and an early bedtime after that.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night.

Health Metrics: * bw= 212.31 lbs. * bp= 130/79 (61)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, toe raises, wall push-ups, BP breathing exercises, pilates

Diet: * 06:00 – 1 banana * 07:40 – beef chop suey, fried rice * 11:45 – 1 peanut butter sandwich, * 12:00 – biscuits & gravy, fried chicken, apple pie

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 03:40 – listen to local news talk radio * 05:10 – bank accounts activity monitored * 05:20 -read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, take daily meds, unpack, organize * 12:00 – lunch at home with Sylvia * 15:00 – listening to The Jack Show, and briefly napping * 17:00 – unpacking, sorting, praying, thinking...

Chess: * 13:31 – moved in all pending CC games

𝐽’𝑎𝑖 𝑣𝑢 𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑣𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑖̂𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑑𝑢 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒.

𝐼𝑙𝑠 𝑣𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒́𝑠,

𝑇𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑙𝑎 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒̀𝑟𝑒,

𝐷𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑙 𝑑𝑒𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒̂𝑡𝑠.

𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑐𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑠,

𝐴𝑢𝑠𝑠𝑖 ℎ𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑓𝑎𝑐̧𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑒𝑟𝑠,

𝑄𝑢’𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑔𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑒𝑟𝑠,

𝑅𝑖𝑒𝑛,

𝐷𝑒 𝑐𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑣𝑟𝑎𝑖,

𝑁’𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑡.

𝑉𝑒́𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑖̂𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑑𝑢 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒,

𝐼𝑙𝑠 𝑒𝑛 𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑢𝑟𝑠,

𝑀𝑎𝑖𝑠 𝑒𝑛 𝑓𝑢𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑠 ℎ𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑢𝑟𝑠.

𝐿𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑛𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑡 𝑞𝑢’𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑢𝑟𝑠.

I have been free-flowing and writing my tarot aka taro readings and observations in here. I thought I was writing to no one, and that I’m writing for myself, but because this isn’t locked—that’s kind of bullshit. There is always still the chance of a random reader finding these words, and feeling enamored to read on and read me well. I have felt the allure and wonder about some of the writing I found on this platform.

Thanks, Matt, Creator of Write.as, for making this space for us.

The more I think about it, while I do write for myself. I also write for the random stranger who happens to find this today. Whomever you are, hello. I hope you stick around and start writing too.

When I scroll through my recent writings here, there is a part of me that wonders if I’m contributing to the ‘slop’ somehow. I trust that Creator Matt, does not secretly have a deal with LLM Lords or that he’s quietly building his own, and then feeding our words to it. The vibes of this platform feel very neutral and safe, which is why it’s one of the few places I’m paying to play and participate in.

I’m currently reading a compilation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s blog posts, and wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. She writes all forms so beautifully. Blogging itself became an art form, before SEO, BuzzFeed, content monetization, and clicks took over the Internet.

Remember when writers and creatives joined us on Livejournal? It was such a different world. Where does everyone write these days? The “celebrities” seem to like Substack. It would be very wild if someone among the whole list of supporters of Write.as, actually had more than 5,000 followers on a social media platform and are finding some fun with anonymity here.

I’m thinking of pulling a card before bed, but I’ve word-vomitted enough. I’ll try my best to dedicate time to write about a theme, and more coherently. Or maybe, at the very least, come up with a format if I am going to continue writing tarot-related posts here.

#writing #daily #focused

i & I ; I en i in de stripverhaal lees club

i en I zitten op een donderdagavond samen bij een beetje verdekt opgesteld tafeltje in een schimmige stripverhaal leesclub gevestigd in een oude verloederde woon, werk en industrie wijk, al daar verkeren zij in steeds grotere staat van opwinding, turend met grote ogen naar een hoger geletterde auteur die op het podium steeds meer de diepere kern van haar werken laat zien en zo langzaam maar zeker i en I daarin meesleept naar de climax van de vertelling.

i — I

---

i en I zitten samen bij een verdekt opgesteld tafeltje in een schimmige stripverhaal leesclub aldaar verkeren zij in steeds grotere staat van opwinding, turend met grote ogen naar een hoger geletterde auteur die op het podium steeds meer de diepe kern van haar werken laat zien en zo langzaam i en I daarin meesleept naar de climax van de vertelling.

i — I

---

i en I zitten samen bij een tafeltje in een schimmige stripverhaal club aldaar verkeren zij in steeds grotere staat van opwinding, turend naar een hoger geletterde auteur die op het podium de diepe kern van haar werken laat zien en i en I meesleept naar de climax van de vertelling.

i — I

---

i en I zitten bij een tafeltje in een stripverhaal club, turen naar een hoger geletterde auteur die de diepe kern van haar werk laat zien en i en I meesleept naar de climax.

i — I

---

i en I turen naar een hoger geletterde in een stripverhaal club die i en I meesleept naar de climax.

i — I

---

i en I turen naar een hoger geletterde in een stripverhaal club.

i — I

---

i en I turen naar een geletterde.

i — I

---

i en I turen.

i — I

---

De climax viel toch tegen i. \ I i

If you're doing your daily Bible reading from the ACNA Daily Lectionary—and I hope you are, because I think it's the best reading plan for most people—then you're getting ready during Advent to read through the Book of Revelation. Exciting times!

It's no secret that I disagree strongly with the Dispensationalist understanding of Scripture, as held by John MacArthur, Calvary Chapel, the Left Behind series, Dallas Theological Seminary, and much of contemporary Evangelicalism. This understanding is heterodox, at best, and contradicts nearly 1900 years of consistent biblical interpretation from the days of the Apostles through the 19th century. For some reason, that reality doesn't both people like it should.

Watching a Todd Friel video this morning on the Book of Revelation, he said the following:

“We need to understand the Book of Revelation the way the original audience would have understood it. If we come up with a different interpretation than they did then WE have it wrong.”

Bingo. Exactly. Couldn't agree more. And yet...coming up with a different interpretation is exactly what Dispensationalism does. Here's his entire video. It is certainly worth 20 minutes of your time. I wish I could speak like he does. I wish I was as exciting to listen to as he is. I wish I had his hair, too.

Seriously, watch it. He's fantastic.

#Evangelicalism #theology

Please feel free to use this copy, and adjust as necessary, for your book marketing efforts. Credit goes to copywriter Ben Settle, who got the idea from copywriter Richard Armstrong.

https://oregoneagle.com/what-in-the-world-is-wrong-with-me/

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“Why Can’t I Finish Reading a Single Sci-Fi Novel?”

•  “I open a book, feel overwhelmed, and put it down.” •  “I sit down to read, but my family is always calling for me.” •  “I spent good money on books just to leave them gathering dust on my bookshelf.” •  “I bought all these e-books on sale and haven’t opened a single one.” •  “I try reading on my commute, but I get distracted by emails, YouTube, and TikTok.” •  “I bought dedicated e-readers, yet I still don’t read any more than I used to.”

As a busy reader, you often don’t have the uninterrupted time a 400-page novel demands.

Read novelettes instead (7,500 to 20,000 words). Their bite-sized, high-momentum format lets you experience complete, thrilling stories and reach the finish line at your own pace.

That’s why I wrote The Package Trilogy.

Follow Malcolm Diego as he attempts to deliver a mysterious package entrusted to him by his ex-girlfriend—while dodging everyone and everything in space trying to kill him.

•  Average Word Count: ~14,300 words per installment

•  Average Reading Time: ~55 minutes

Get each installment of The Package on Gumroad for just $1 each (instant access to both EPUB and PDF formats).

Scan below to grab your copies and start enjoying reading again:

Part 1	Part 2	Part 3
(Paste QR Code 1 Here)	(Paste QR Code 2 Here)	(Paste QR Code 3 Here)
$1.00 — EPUB + PDF	$1.00 — EPUB + PDF	$1.00 — EPUB + PDF

PS: If any of the problems don’t apply to you scan below to get the paperback version (all three novelettes in one package) on Lulu for $19.99. Or wait for the Christmas sale for the entire month of December for $3 off.

#books #copywriting #marketing

New Mexico St. Aggies at Sam Houston St. Bearkats.

From Conference USA, the Sam Houston Bearkats college football team will be hosting the New Mexico St. Aggies in a game tonight starting at 7:00 PM CT. My meds, prayers, and sleep schedule should allow me to catch the radio call of at least the 1st half of the game before putting head to pillow. At least, that's my plan.

And the adventure continues.

JOURNAL 21 octobre 2026

Mon frangin m'a téléphoné, il a trouvé quelqu'un pour me remplacer trois après-midi par semaine. Il m'a même dit que ça me plairait et il me laisse la surprise. Je crois que j'ai une petite idée 🤗😍 Le reste sera assuré par les deux K´ ( ils ont presque le même nom, j'avais jamais dit je crois ) pour un mois et demi ça ira. Et lui-même ira de temps en temps. Le vieux a eu son compte, il n'a pas bronché,il est cuit, sinon ça va nous faire bien rigoler ce soir je pense. Maintenant on va se faire un super thé avec gâteaux parce qu'on est passées par la pâtisserie. Une qui est à la fête je vous dis pas, de plus sa tante arrive demain...

#dojo

I played about 10 games or so of overwatch today with T and S, And we only won one of them. But surprisingly, I had a lot of fun, we were even rage beating each other and blaming each other for the losses.

The demand for convenient laundry pickup and delivery services is creating opportunities for businesses in Kuwait to build dedicated digital platforms. A well-designed laundry app can help customers schedule pickups, track orders, choose services, make payments, and receive delivery updates from their phones.

The cost of Laundry App Development in Kuwait typically ranges from KWD 7,500 to KWD 45,000+, depending on the application's features, platforms, integrations, backend requirements, and level of customization.

For businesses planning mobile app development in Kuwait, understanding these cost factors before starting development can help establish a realistic budget and avoid expensive changes later.

Laundry App Development Cost in Kuwait

There is no fixed cost for developing a laundry application because the required functionality varies between businesses.

A basic laundry booking MVP may cost around KWD 7,500–15,000. A mid-level platform with customer, driver, and laundry-partner functionality can range from KWD 15,000–30,000. A more advanced solution with automation, real-time tracking, multiple service providers, advanced analytics, and custom integrations may exceed KWD 30,000–45,000+.

App Type Estimated Cost

Basic Laundry App KWD 7,500–15,000

Mid-Level Laundry Platform KWD 15,000-30,000

Advanced Laundry Ecosystem KWD 30,000–45,000+

These are planning estimates. The final cost depends on the development scope and technical requirements.

What Factors Affect Laundry App Development Costs?

1. App Features and Complexity

Features directly influence development time and cost. A simple application may only allow customers to book a pickup and select laundry services. A larger platform may require separate interfaces for customers, drivers, laundry businesses, and administrators.

Common customer features include:

Registration and secure login

Laundry service selection

Pickup and delivery scheduling

Address management

Order tracking

Price calculation

Online payments

Order history

Push notifications

Ratings and reviews

Offers and promotional codes

Advanced platforms may also include subscriptions, recurring orders, loyalty programs, automated pricing, digital invoices, and personalized offers.

1. Number of Applications

A laundry delivery business may require more than one application.

The customer app manages bookings and payments, while a driver app can handle pickup assignments, navigation, delivery status, and order updates. Laundry partners may require a separate dashboard or application for managing orders, services, pricing, and availability.

An admin panel is also necessary for managing users, orders, payments, drivers, service providers, and reports.

Building multiple interfaces naturally increases development hours and testing requirements.

Payment and Location Integrations

Payment integration is an important consideration for a laundry platform operating in Kuwait. The application may need to support locally relevant payment options alongside cards and other digital payment methods.

Location and map integration is equally important for pickup and delivery operations. Customers should be able to save addresses, select pickup locations, and track order progress.

Additional integrations with SMS, email, CRM, analytics, accounting, or delivery management systems can further affect the project budget.

Native vs Cross-Platform Development

The choice between native and cross-platform development can influence both initial cost and long-term maintenance.

Developing separate native Android and iOS applications generally requires more development resources. Cross-platform development can reduce duplicated development work when the application does not require highly platform-specific functionality.

However, businesses should select the technology based on performance requirements, expected user volume, integrations, scalability, and future product plans rather than cost alone.

An experienced mobile app development company in Kuwait can assess these requirements and recommend an appropriate technology strategy.

How Long Does It Take to Build a Laundry App?

A basic laundry booking MVP may take approximately 3–5 months to develop. A mid-level platform with customer, driver, and admin functionality can take around 5–7 months, while a complex multi-vendor laundry ecosystem may require 7–10 months or longer.

The timeline depends on the number of platforms, feature complexity, third-party integrations, UI/UX requirements, testing, and deployment requirements.

Launching an MVP first can help businesses validate their service model before investing in advanced features.

How to Reduce Laundry App Development Costs

Businesses can control development costs by defining their core requirements before development begins.

Instead of launching every possible feature, prioritize functions that directly support bookings, payments, pickups, deliveries, and customer communication. Advanced features such as loyalty programs, subscriptions, AI-based recommendations, or sophisticated analytics can be added later.

A scalable backend architecture also helps reduce the need for expensive redevelopment when the number of users and orders increases.

Why Choose Techugo for Laundry App Development?

The success of a laundry application depends on more than its interface. The development team must understand booking workflows, delivery operations, payment processing, location services, backend architecture, and data security.

Techugo can help businesses plan and develop customized laundry applications based on their operating model and target customers. The development process can cover business analysis, UI/UX design, app development, API integrations, testing, deployment, and ongoing improvements.

Before requesting a final quotation, businesses should prepare their feature list, preferred platforms, delivery model, payment requirements, integrations, and expected user volume. This allows the development team to provide a more accurate cost and timeline.

FAQs

How much does it cost to develop a laundry app in Kuwait?

Laundry app development can cost approximately KWD 7,500 to KWD 45,000+, depending on features, platforms, integrations, and overall complexity.

What features should a laundry delivery app include?

Core features include service selection, pickup scheduling, delivery tracking, order management, payments, notifications, customer profiles, and order history.

Do I need separate apps for customers and delivery drivers?

For businesses offering pickup and delivery, separate customer and driver interfaces can provide better functionality and operational control.

Can a laundry app support multiple laundry businesses?

Yes. A multi-vendor model can allow several laundry providers to manage their services, pricing, orders, and availability through a shared platform.

How long does laundry app development take?

A basic MVP may take around 3–5 months, while a feature-rich laundry platform can require 7–10 months or longer.

Conclusion

The cost of Laundry App Development in Kuwait depends primarily on the application's features, number of user interfaces, integrations, technology stack, and backend complexity. Businesses should focus first on the features that directly support their laundry and delivery operations.

A clearly defined MVP can help control the initial investment while creating a foundation for future expansion. With the right development partner, businesses can build a scalable laundry platform designed around Kuwait's customer expectations and operational requirements.

Book launch for THE SOLAR GRID hardback tentatively locked in... in Denmark! Probably around early-summer next year.

Social media campaigning has been spreading me a little thin. You'd be surprised by the amount of time that goes into shooting and editing a 30 second reel. I'm gonna need to pull away and focus on finishing up writing, drawing, and designing TIMES NEW HUMAN, which—as per my agreement with EUNIC—will need to be launched, at least locally, before year's end.

Look at me excel-sheeting my journal to track progress for Christ's sake. Also got a couple of fantastic-looking advance-reader copies of things friends sent me that I need to read.

The thing with social media is you can't rely on having just the one “ad” and repost. You gotta vary your “content” for sustainable engagement. Traditional promotion has been flipped over its head. It's why film studios don't just give us the trailer anymore; no, they give us clips of Christopher Nolan talking about some of his latest filmmaking techniques and Tom Cruise joking about how much fun he had performing in a fat suit. Easier done of course when you're a juggernaut with immense resources, but it doesn't absolve everyone else from needing to use somewhat similar strategies to get noticed. And here's the thing; if a giant like Christopher Nolan—who is notoriously known for not even having a smartphone of his own—understands that being visible on social media is imperative to the success of his already-well-promoted film... what makes us little guys think we can get away with having no social media presence at all and still make a living?

It's hard though when you're doing everything yourself. The mental shift from creating to promoting and back again is, admittedly, a little too much for me to handle. So I'm gonna need to land on a system that won't fuck with my head too much. Maybe dedicate one single day a week to shooting and preparing material and scheduling it in advance, so the rest of the week is free to write and draw. Something like that.

I like systems. Systems are good.

#journal #work