Snapchat’s interactive lenses are no longer limited to your smartphones, as the social media giant unveiled the Snap Camera on Friday.
The Snap Camera is a free desktop app that users can download to use a range of interactive lenses to their computer’s webcam. The Snap Camera syncs up with your webcam so that you can use it in recorded YouTube videos or popular video chat platforms like Skype, Google Hangouts and even when streaming on Twitch.
Not only do the users get access to filters made by Snapchat, such as the popular rainbow throw up filter and the dog filter, they can also use any lenses submitted by creators through the firm’s Lens Studio.
In order to try this out yourself, you can download Snap Camera for free right now – it is available for both Mac and Windows. Once you install it, it automatically syncs with the camera connected to your computer and works with several video chatting platforms and video uploading sites. Now, you can browse through Lens Explorer to try on different AR face filters, see who made them and star their favorites for easy access.
Snapchat also developed a custom Camera tool that integrates with Twitch. You can use this Twitch that you can use to “reward new subscribers with custom Lens reactions,” according to Snap. The app also includes some special lenses that can turn you into characters from popular games like World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and PUBG.
As Eitan Pilipski, Head of Snap’s camera platform explains, “we’re trying to find new distribution channels for those creators to surface their work. This a very unique opportunity, bringing Snapchat AR experiences to the desktop.”
“We don’t want to compete in that space. We just want to bring Community Lenses to whatever apps people are using,” Pilipski explains. One major app that won’t support Snap Camera is Apple’s FaceTime. Why? “I don’t know. Apple didn’t comment on that. Believe me we tried,” says Pilipski.
