How I paid with bitcoin using my Meta glassesHow I paid with bitcoin using my Meta glasses

A few days ago I paid a Lightning invoice without touching my phone. I looked at a QR code through my Meta glasses, the glasses read the invoice, and Unify paid it over BOLT12. It's a proof of concept and still rough, but I think we're one of the first to ever try this on Bitcoin (or at least Lightning).

The walletThe wallet

I built Unify a few months ago. It's a bitcoin app, Lightning-only wallet, built entirely on BOLT12, and it does the basic things every wallet needs(why BOLT12 and not the usual invoices is a separate post. I'll get to it).

The reason I could build it so fast is the Breez SDK @Breez_Tech. You add it to a project, let AI handle a lot of the rest, and in a few days, you have a wallet that moves real money. That's what I was talking about with @dannystagg, a friend of mine at Breez.

ViareggioViareggio

Danny and I had been chatting for a while, mostly about Meta glasses. We both use them, for slightly different things. We met in person for the first time at the Tuscany Lightning Summit in Viareggio.

We talked about Breez's time2build challenge. I told him I didn't think any of the projects were really new (that's my opinion, not his!). When I criticize something I try to say why, so I gave him an example of what I'd consider new: paying with Meta glasses. They're good hardware, and nobody is using them to pay.

He liked the idea.

The missing pieceThe missing piece

After the summit we kept sending each other the Meta AI SDK preview, saying we should try it. The problem is that the glasses need a companion app, and I was building one. So I added it to my todo list and started reading the SDK.

What it does todayWhat it does today

You open Unify and set up the glasses. They connect to the app, and the app shows the camera from the glasses. You look at a Lightning invoice, the glasses detect it on their own, and Unify pays it over BOLT12.

The hard part is the scan. The first version of reading the QR through the glasses is unreliable, and that makes anything more than "look and pay" difficult. That's what I'm working on now.

What doesn't work yetWhat doesn't work yet

The flow is still tied to Meta. What I want is to say "Hey Meta, pay this invoice" and have the glasses take the picture, send it to the app, and let the app pay it. That isn't possible yet. It needs the glasses and the SDK to get better, and that will take some time.

For now you pay by looking, not by talking.

This is a small video demo: https://x.com/PalazzoVincenzo/status/2062889873514676250

What's nextWhat's next

Credit to @dannystagg at @Breez_Tech, who helped me try this for real. Next I want to work on the voice flow and make the scanning reliable. And I still owe you the post on why Unify is built on BOLT12.

You can find me at @PalazzoVincenzo.