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Face Recognition Blocking Glasses Tested<br>RK

Rob Kilpatrick<br>•Published Jul 29, 2026 17:07 PM

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Public concern over facial recognition surveillance has grown, driving demand for anti-surveillance eyewear that claims to defeat facial recognition cameras using IR-blocking lenses. One brand, featured recently in the New York Post, sells such lenses as a "firewall for your face."

IPVM tested Solir's IR-blocking sunglasses against five video-based facial recognition systems and iPhone Face ID, comparing results against a standard $25 pair of CVS sunglasses.

Executive Summary

These glasses don't work against facial recognition. IPVM tested Solir's $70 to $100 IR-blocking sunglasses against a range of widely used providers, Motorola Alta, Google Nest, Rhombus, Ubiquiti, and Verkada, and all correctly identified the wearer, identical results to a $25 pair of CVS sunglasses. The glasses do prevent iPhone Face ID from unlocking, but nobody buying anti-surveillance eyewear is trying to stop themselves from logging into their own phone. They are trying to stop other people from recognizing their face. On that, Solir fails.

What We Tested

IPVM tested both the Solir glasses and a $25 pair of CVS sunglasses against five video-based facial recognition platforms and iPhone Face ID.

Neither Pair Defeats Video-Based Facial Recognition

Tested against Motorola Alta, Google Nest, Rhombus, Ubiquiti, and Verkada — a range of widely used providers — both the Solir glasses and the CVS sunglasses produced the same result: every system correctly matched the wearer walking through the scene. The IR-blocking coating offered no advantage over a standard pair of sunglasses against any of the five platforms. This is what IPVM would expect across surveillance cameras and facial recognition systems generally: the industry standard is visible-light recognition, meaning IR-blocking lenses offer no meaningful protection against virtually any system a person would encounter in public.

Solir Blocks iPhone From Unlocking

The two pairs diverged only on iPhone Face ID. The Solir glasses consistently prevented the phone from unlocking. The $25 CVS pair almost always allowed it.

Why the Glasses Block Face ID but Not Surveillance Cameras

The difference comes down to how each system uses infrared light. Apple's Face ID relies on a flood illuminator and dot projector that cast over 30,000 near-infrared dots at ~940nm onto the face, building a 3D depth map. This was demonstrated in a late 2025 photo essay from AP showing IR surveillance tech:

Solir's coating absorbs IR at that wavelength before it reaches the face, breaking the depth mesh and preventing recognition. Camera-based surveillance facial recognition operates differently: it uses visible light to capture facial features and relies on IR only for scene illumination at night, typically at 850nm. Blocking IR at the lens has no effect on a system that is reading faces in visible light.

Testing at 850nm IR confirmed this: the Solir glasses did not block any part of the face that a standard pair of sunglasses wouldn't in low-light conditions. Solir's own FAQ describes the coating as absorbing rather than reflecting IR: it prevents IR from penetrating and reaching the eyes. That mechanism only matters when IR is doing the biometric work, as in Face ID, not when it is simply lighting a scene.

The Marketing Gap

Solir's privacy page lists "public surveillance and security systems" among the environments its lenses protect against and positions the product as disrupting "infrared-based facial recognition." The fine print hedges: the FAQ states the glasses "reduce the accuracy and consistency of camera-based facial recognition systems, not to promise invisibility." But the headline framing implies that IR-based facial recognition is the norm in the places buyers are actually concerned about: casinos, retail stores, transit hubs. In practice, the cameras in those environments are not using IR-based biometric mapping at all.

The likely result: buyers test the glasses against their iPhone, see Face ID fail to unlock, and conclude the glasses work. That conclusion is technically accurate but practically misleading. Blocking Face ID and defeating public surveillance facial recognition are two different things, and the $70 to $100 price premium over a standard pair of sunglasses buys protection against only one of them.

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