The camera company has come to your desktop. No, not the Kodak, or any of the DSLR companies. I am talking about Snapchat, the social networking platform that calls itself the camera company. It has brought its ‘fancy camera’ as Snap Camera to Windows and Mac desktop, and it is integrated with other social networking apps such as YouTube, Twitch, Zoom, and Skype.

With Snap Camera running on your desktop, you will be able to put up Snapchat filters – the lenses, in the Snap speak – all the while streaming online. Now think of all the fun filters you could have on while streaming a game like Fortnite or even synchronizing with your co-workers on the Q3 bottom lines via video conferencing.

For Snapchat, the move to the desktop levels the playing field given other competing social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have a huge presence on both desktop and mobile. All along, Snapchat biggest presence has so far been on mobile. And for the record most of the fancy augmented reality filters and Stories seen on both Facebook and WhatsApp, most were copy-pasted off Snapchat.

How to use Snap Camera

Simply download and install the app, and then select it as the camera output on a third-party desktop app.

With the Snap Camera, you get thousands of Snap lenses; from both Snapchat and a host of community lenses creators via the company’s Lens Studio tool. For a variety of lenses, search using your keyboard and save the ones you like by clicking the star icon to put them under your favorites. You can also browse your most recently used lenses on its dedicated tab.

You do not need a Snapchat account to use the Snap Camera, which is something good for users who have never used the social network before, but curious to give this desktop version a go. Then again, even if you had a Snapchat account, the company does not let you log into it from a desktop. Not, at all!

Snapchat says it has 250,000 lenses to date, created using Lens Studio. Collectively, these lenses have been viewed at least 15 billion times.

“We’re trying to find new distribution channels for those creators to surface their work. We think this is a very unique opportunity, bringing Snapchat AR experiences to the desktop,” — Eitan Pilipski, the head of camera platform at Snapchat.