Snapchat Launched Voice-Activated Lenses To Easily Upgrade Your Selfies

There's a new Snapchat feature that'll give you an instant virtual makeover. You can easily use a voice command to unlock filters that'll make your hair pink or transform you into a potato. Here's how to use Snapchat's voice-activated Lenses to upgrade your selfies with a new look.

Snapchat announced Voice Scan for users on Thursday, June 11, at the second annual Snap Partner Summit. In partnership with SoundHound, the new feature allows you to give Snapchat a voice command to open up a specific Lens, rather than scrolling through all the Lenses to find the one you're looking for.

To use Voice Scan, which is currently rolling out to users, you'll want to first make sure you have the updated version of Snapchat. After that, open camera screen in either selfie mode or world-facing mode, and then press and hold in the middle of the camera screen — not the actual record button. While holding down, you can give a voice command to activate Lenses. In selfie mode, you can say things like "Hey Snapchat, make my hair pink," or, "Hey Snapchat, make me a potato," to activate a filter for a virtual makeover on your selfie. If you're on world-facing mode, you can say things like, "Take me underwater," or, "Take me to outer space," which will change your surroundings in your camera. By activating the Lenses with your voice, you can easily try on a few new looks in less time than it would normally take you by searching through the carousel.

If your Voice Scan feature doesn't work right away, try updating the app and signing out and back in to Snapchat. If you still don't have it, you may just have to wait, as the feature is still rolling out.

In addition to voice-activated Lenses, you can use Scan to unlock a information about what your camera is "looking at." To use the feature, you'll need to press and hold in the view finder to activate the relevant Lenses, which are currently rolling out. The plant identifiers from PlantSnap lets you use your camera to Scan a plant or tree and find out what kind of tree or plant it is. The feature can identify 90% of all known plants and trees, using the more than 600,000 types in its database. Once you're given the plant's name, you'll also see a link to "Learn more" about it through the PlantSnap app, including its origin and how to take care of it. If you'd like to identify a cute pooch you've spotted, you can use Dog Scan, which Snapchat created in partnership with the Dog Scanner app. The scanner can recognize almost 400 breeds and it even works on people too, so you can figure out which dog breed you most closely resemble.

Snapchat also announced a new Action Bar to make it easier to navigate to different parts of the app, like Chats and the Snap Map. The company is also releasing updates like a wellness "Here For You" vertical in partnership with Headspace. Updates will continue to roll out, so you can keep an eye on your app to stay in the know with the latest features.