Black Mirror-like glasses let you block ads in real life

We are always being exposed to adverts. Even Netflix has changed its model just so it can create an ad plan where you pay less but you have to endure ad breaks. Often online we can press that handy little ‘X’ in the corner to shut down the pop-up, but there's no such solution in real life, right? Well, maybe soon there will be. A software engineer posted an experiment of a pair or augmented reality glasses that could block ads (Picture: Stijn Spanhove)

How do they work?

Do you remember that Black Mirror episode where people could block other people in real life? It works something like that, just not quite as dystopian. When you wear the smart glasses and look at a billboard, a red rectangle pops up to block the offending visual clutter from your view (Picture: Stijn Spanhove)

How were they made?

Stin Spanhove, a Belgian programmer, is the brain behind the glasses, who used Snap's fifth-generation AR Spectacles. He engineered Google’s Gemini AI to identify advertisements visible through the smart glasses and promptly blocked them, replacing the advertisement with a red square, while also naming the brand it has hidden (Picture: Stijn Spanhove)

In a post on X, he wrote: ‘I've been building an XR app for a real-world ad blocker using Snap Spectacles. It uses Gemini to detect and block ads in the environment. It’s still early and experimental, but it’s exciting to imagine a future where you control the physical content you see.’ A video shows the glasses in action, with the app correctly identifying and visually blocking out ads on posters, pedestrian billboards, and a newspaper, and it can even block out brand names on food packaging (Picture: Stijn Spanhove)

Although the app is still in its early stages, it reveals the possibilities of removing ads from your life, and the programmer is even thinking of a way that lets users customise the red squares, replacing them with anything from personal photos to to-do lists. Unfortunately, however, the app is put together using Snap’s Depth Cache dev tools, so right now it is only available exclusively to Snap’s AR Spectacles, so Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro wearers will have to wait (Picture: Stijn Spanhove)

How is augmented reality different from virtual reality?

Augmented reality (AR) enhances the world we live in, and creates a partial digital world on top of what we ordinarily see. Whereas virtual reality creates a fully virtual world which allows for a complete immersion of the human senses – which isn't so great for when you’re out and about (Picture: Stijn Spanhove)

What are Snap Spectacles?

Snap Spectacles are developed by Snap Inc, the company behind Snapchat. The company plans to release a sixth-generation of its augmented reality glasses in 2026. Its next-generation glasses will be called Specs – however, they are still yet to release a price and launch date. Their most recent Spectacles were released in September 2024 to developers only, and only available under a leasing model that required users to commit to paying $99 (£73) a month for a full year. The company launched its first Spectacles glasses in 2016, but that was limited to simple features like helping users shoot short videos that they could post to Snapchat. The update to augmented reality displays happened in 2021 (Picture: Getty)