Change your age in real time with Snapchat’s new Time Machine Lens

Smartphone users can now choose the age they appear in Snapchat photos.

Snapchat’s new Time Machine lens lets users change their apparent age using a simple slider. Like other lenses, it’s an augmented-reality enhancement that lets users add 3D details to photos, changing the look of objects, scenes, and people when viewed through the Snapchat mobile app.

The Time Machine lens relies upon resource-hungry machine learning algorithms. The software requires too much memory and processing power to work well on older smartphones. Snap says the lens works well on Apple phones as old as the iPhone 6S. On Android devices, availability is limited to particular phones. Snapchat’s approved list includes the Samsung Galaxy A70, S9, S9+, and S10; Huawei’s P20 Pro, Y7, and Y9; the OnePlus 6T; the Redmi Note 7; and Google’s Pixel 3a. 

The new lens is installed automatically when users upgrade to the latest version of Snapchat.