Those limits decide what ships: a user who turns away mid-call, a mid-range Android phone, an effect that cannot drop frames. Banuba builds and maintains the integration on all eight platforms, iOS, Android, Web, Unity, Flutter, React Native, Windows and macOS, so the same effect runs inside a phone app and inside a laptop conferencing tool.
[navigation]
TL;DR:
- Bermuda, a random live video chat app, triggers 15 million Banuba feature launches a month across 20 million installs;
- Clash of Streamers turns a player selfie into an in-game hero and passed 4 million installs in under a year;
- GreenBee ships Banuba effects preinstalled on over 500,000 devices, which is why the Windows and macOS builds matter;
- Eyebou screened the eyesight of 10,000 children with Banuba distance measurement, so face AR is not only entertainment;
- Judge your own idea on tracking range, occlusion tolerance, platform coverage, and whether your effect exists in the Banuba catalog or needs custom 3D work;
What Counts As A Face AR Example?
Not a concept video. Not a demo reel. An app in production, with a named builder and a result somebody can check.
The face AR examples collected below all clear that bar. Every one of them runs on Banuba Face AR SDK, so the feature set behind them is the same, and the differences come from what each product needed: a mask that survives a weak connection, a background that holds on a laptop, a measurement accurate enough for a vision test.
Key Takeaways:
- A usable example names the builder, the Banuba feature it used, and a number.
- Shipped apps tell you more about feasibility than any demo reel does.
- The same SDK sits behind a karaoke app and a UNICEF vision program.
How Does Face AR Work In Live Video Chat And Streaming?
Camera on. Stranger on the other side. No time to buffer. This is the hardest case for face tracking, and it is where the largest deployments on this list sit.
Bermuda: 15 Million Banuba Feature Launches A Month
Mylos, a South Korean studio, built Bermuda as a random live video chat app. The Banuba layer covers AR face masks, beautification and touch-up, background replacement, and LUTs.
The app passed 20 million installs and more than 4 billion matches, and users fire 15 million Banuba feature launches every month. Mylos walks through the integration in the Bermuda case study.
"The main reason why we implemented the Banuba SDK is the high quality of the assets and filters. They make the users want to apply them during video chats." — Hyunjoon Park, Engineering Manager at Bermuda.
Bermuda's AR masks during a video chat
b.stage: 1 Million Monthly Active Users In Two Years
bemyfriends, also South Korean, runs b.stage as a SaaS fandom platform for K-pop artists, creators, and eSports teams. Beauty effects, face touch-up, and 3D masks from Banuba run inside the live streaming and the 1:1 video chat.
b.stage passed 1 million monthly active users two years after its April 2022 launch, draws visitors from 224 countries, and serves over 130 customers globally, with T1, Sentinels, Hwasa, I.M of MonstaX, KISS OF LIFE, H1-KEY, and Chungha among the owners. The growth is broken down in the b.stage fandom platform case study.
Agora Extensions Marketplace: Face AR Without The Integration Work
Not an app. A shortcut. Banuba Face AR SDK is also available as a version made natively compatible with Agora's products, with Agora managing the integration, and on Agora it covers iOS, Android, and Web. It first shipped in 2021 and was expanded in June 2023.
So if your video feed already belongs to a provider, the effects layer on top of it without a separate integration project. We announced the worldwide partnership with Agora when it went live.
Bermuda and Clash of Streamers solved the same retention problem from opposite ends, which we pulled apart in a longer look at face AR in creator apps.
Key Takeaways:
- Live video carries the highest volume here, with Bermuda alone at 15 million Banuba feature launches a month.
- Neither live app used masks on their own: both paired them with beautification or background work.
- When a provider owns the video feed, the Agora-compatible version removes the integration work.
Where Does Face AR Show Up In Video Calls And On Desktop?
VROOM: +30% Monthly Active User Growth
VROOM is a professional video calling app. It added Banuba virtual backgrounds and face touch-up to raise the camera enablement rate.
Monthly active user growth went up 30%, and registered users went up 54%. Two numbers, one feature set.
GreenBee: Banuba Effects Preinstalled On 500,000 Devices
GreenBee is a Japanese software vendor for consumer electronics, and its video-conferencing tool ships preinstalled on laptops. Banuba supplies the virtual backgrounds, the Beauty and Makeup API, face editing, and studio lighting inside that tool.
Then it got harder. Banuba's R&D team ported the neural networks to NPUs, starting with virtual backgrounds, to raise performance and cut laptop energy use. That department is staffed with Ph.D.-level computer scientists with over 100 years of experience between them.
The application is installed on over 500,000 devices, the AR features are on display in 3,000 shops in Japan, and GreenBee's client list includes multiple Fortune 500 companies. Read how the neural networks were ported for a major software vendor.
Key Takeaways:
- Desktop is not an afterthought: GreenBee's volume sits on laptops, not phones.
- VROOM added virtual backgrounds and face touch-up for camera enablement and reported +30% monthly active user growth.
- All tracking and rendering run on the device, so neither product depends on a cloud round-trip per frame.
What Can Face AR Do In Games And Creator Apps?
Clash of Streamers: Your Own Face As A Playable Hero
Naughty Cult, a Bulgarian studio, built Clash of Streamers as a play-to-earn hero-collector mobile RPG with NFTs. Players take a selfie, and face filters plus precise background removal turn their own face into an in-game hero. The same AR masks also run on their Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube streams.
The game passed 4 million installs across iOS and Android in under a year, holds 100,000 monthly active players, and became the top-grossing and most popular NFT and blockchain-integrated game on both stores. The average price of a sold NFT was $7,000. The studio picked Banuba partly for the 1000+ effects. Full details sit in the Clash of Streamers case study.
"By integrating Banuba's AR filters in Clash of Streamers, we were able to add an innovative twist to the mobile RPG 'hero collector' formula and let players create heroes based on their own likeness." — Reese Leysen, CEO, The Naughty Cult Ltd.
How AR masks are used in-game for the Clash of Streamers
Hyperspeed: A Game Built Around Face-To-Face Video Play
Teatime Games built Hyperspeed as a social AR mobile game where players see each other while they play. Banuba Face Filters SDK powers the filters, effects, and masks in real time during play and in post-processing afterward, and players unlock effects with reward points.
Thousands of app installs, increased user engagement, higher retention. Teatime Games shipped it targeting both iOS and Android users, and describes the build in this AR video chat case study.
Hyperseed AR masks
MNFST: Branded Masks Built To Order
MNFST, out of London, is an influencer marketing app that lets anyone earn from their social capital. Banuba custom-built the branded AR masks and filters it uses to make promoted Instagram posts attention-grabbing.
More than 1 million installs, and $2.5M raised. MNFST's success story covers the branded-mask work.
TJ Smart Song List: Masks You Unlock With Game Bonuses
TJ Smart Song List is a karaoke app on iOS and Android. It licensed face filters from the Banuba catalog and added beautification: skin smoothing, skin tone correction, eyes and teeth whitening, face morphing. Users browse AR "game face" masks and unlock them for game bonuses.
The stated outcome is plain: increased user satisfaction in the karaoke app.
Key Takeaways:
- Games treat face AR as a mechanic rather than decoration: a selfie becomes a hero, an effect becomes a reward.
- Clash of Streamers reached 4 million installs in under a year with the selfie-to-hero flow at the center.
- Branded masks can be commissioned from Banuba instead of built in-house, which is the route MNFST took.
Can Face AR Do More Than Entertainment?
FaceYoga: Showing The Result Before The Subscription
Mental Growth, based in Cyprus, built FaceYoga for facial-muscle training and wellness. The app analyses the face through the camera, then uses Banuba beautification to show the expected result after 7 and 28 days of exercises, before the user subscribes.
20,000+ downloads in a few months, with strong user reviews. The FaceYoga story explains the preview flow.
Banuba's Face Tracking for FaceYoga
Eyebou: 10,000 Children Screened
Eyebou, a UK vision-care company, built a remote vision-diagnostics app used in a UNICEF program. It runs Banuba's distance measurement technology inside the diagnostics flow, and the company already used Banuba AR in its eyewear virtual try-on product.
The app screened the eyesight of 10,000 children, helped orphanages save up to 70% on eye care, and Eyebou was included in the UN-vetted supplier list. Eyebou's vision-screening story has the program details.
BluePixel: AR Photo Booths For Marketing Campaigns
BluePixel is a multi-platform production agency that runs AR photo booths for video and photo marketing campaigns. It built on the Face Filter SDK for Android, added background segmentation to drive a green-screen virtual background changer, commissioned custom filter design, and licensed filters from the Banuba catalog.
One take. Fixed lighting. A queue behind the camera. The pattern is covered on the Banuba AR photo booth page.
Key Takeaways:
- Face tracking doubles as a measuring instrument: Eyebou used Banuba distance measurement for vision screening.
- A believable before and after can carry a subscription decision, which is what FaceYoga's 7- and 28-day preview does.
- Physical installations reuse the same Android build plus background segmentation.
What Do These Face AR Examples Have In Common?
One SDK, a dozen very different builds. Here is what each of them leaned on.
- Platform reach: Banuba Face AR SDK ships to eight platforms from one integration: iOS, Android, Web, Unity, Flutter, React Native, Windows, and macOS. Banuba builds and maintains all eight, including the Flutter and React Native plugins, so there is no community wrapper in the chain.
- On-device processing: Banuba Face AR SDK runs all tracking and rendering on the device with no cloud dependency, works offline, and camera frames never leave the phone.
- Tracking that holds: Banuba Face AR SDK tracks 68 facial anchor points on a 3D mesh of up to 3,308 vertices with 37 mesh morphs, holds across the full -80° to +80° head-angle range, tolerates up to 70% facial occlusion, and detects faces at distances up to 3.7 meters.
- Device coverage: Banuba Face AR SDK reaches 97% of Apple smartphones and 80% of Android ones from a single cross-platform integration.
- Ready-made or custom: the Banuba asset store carries over 1000 ready-made AR face filters to license, while a custom effect is built in any 3D graphical editor, converted in Banuba Studio and previewed on a live camera, with no computer vision work needed.
- Triggers: Banuba Face AR SDK fires scenarios on mouth open, smile, eyebrows and eyes open or closed, and hand gestures fire the same scenarios.
So, how do you judge whether your own idea fits? Four questions:
- How long is the camera on? Minutes of live video, as in Bermuda and b.stage, is a different load from a single photo-booth take;
- Where does it run? If your users sit at laptops, as GreenBee's do, the Windows and macOS builds decide the project;
- Does the effect exist already? Licensing from a catalog of over 1000 filters is configuration, while a branded mask like MNFST's is custom work;
- Does something else own the video feed? A live-video provider in the stack changes the integration, which is why the Agora route exists;
Picking the SDK itself is a separate exercise, and we wrote a checklist for choosing a face AR SDK for exactly that. If you want the mechanics instead, start with how face-based AR experiences are built. And if your shortlist is already down to two vendors, our feature-by-feature comparison with FaceUnity sits on its own page.
Key Takeaways:
- Platform coverage and on-device processing are the two constraints that shaped every product here.
- Configuration versus custom 3D work is usually the real scope question, not the tracking.
- Banuba Studio converts a finished 3D asset into a working effect, so the skill you need is 3D, not computer vision.
Final Thoughts
Twelve builds, one SDK, and no two of them used it the same way. Live video leaned on beautification and backgrounds, games turned tracking into a mechanic, and vision care used it as a measuring instrument.
If your product puts a camera in front of a face for longer than a moment, the pattern you need is probably already in this list, and the specs behind it are published. If a single static overlay is all you need, something lighter will do the job.
Ready to find out which of these patterns matches your roadmap? Open the Banuba Face AR SDK page and start the 14-day free trial.
Reference List
Banuba. (n.d.). Face AR SDK: face filters. https://www.banuba.com/facear-sdk/face-filters
Banuba. (n.d.). Bermuda: Face AR SDK case study. https://www.banuba.com/blog/bermuda-face-ar-sdk-case
Banuba. (n.d.). 1 million MAUs in 2 years for a SaaS fandom platform. https://www.banuba.com/blog/1-million-maus-in-2-years-for-a-saas-fandom-platform
Banuba. (n.d.). Banuba enters a worldwide partnership with Agora. https://www.banuba.com/blog/banuba-enters-a-worldwide-partnership-with-agora
Banuba. (n.d.). Custom neural network development for a major software vendor. https://www.banuba.com/blog/custom-neural-network-development-for-a-major-software-vendor
Banuba. (n.d.). Clash of Streamers: NFT game Face AR SDK case study. https://www.banuba.com/blog/clash-of-streamers-nft-face-ar-sdk-case
Banuba. (n.d.). Empowering the mobile game with AR video chat. https://www.banuba.com/blog/case-study-empowering-the-mobile-game-with-ar-video-chat
Banuba. (n.d.). Face filters MNFST success story. https://www.banuba.com/blog/face-filters-mnfst-success-story
Banuba. (n.d.). FaceYoga by Mental Growth: a success story. https://www.banuba.com/blog/faceyoga-by-mental-growth-a-success-story
Banuba. (n.d.). Vision screening for 10,000 kids: Eyebou success story. https://www.banuba.com/blog/vision-screening-for-10000-kids-eyebou-success-story
Banuba. (n.d.). AR photo booth. https://www.banuba.com/solutions/ar-photo-booth
Banuba. (n.d.). Everything you need to know when choosing a Face AR SDK. https://www.banuba.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-when-choosing-face-ar-sdk
Banuba. (n.d.). Creating face-based AR experiences. https://www.banuba.com/blog/creating-face-based-ar-experiences
Banuba. (n.d.). Banuba Face AR SDK vs FaceUnity. https://www.banuba.com/blog/banuba-face-ar-sdk-vs-faceunity
Banuba. (n.d.). Face AR SDK documentation. https://docs.banuba.com/far-sdk/
Banuba. (n.d.). Banuba Studio. https://studio.banuba.com/
Banuba. (n.d.). Face AR SDK pricing. https://www.banuba.com/banuba-pricing-face-ar-sdk
Banuba. (n.d.). Minimum Face AR SDK size. https://www.banuba.com/faq/minimum-face-ar-sdk-size
-
Banuba Face AR SDK handles both in the same pipeline: face filters, makeup, hair color, face reshaping and 3D masks on the tracking side, LUTs and frame effects on the image side. It ships to iOS, Android, Web, Unity, Flutter, React Native, Windows and macOS, and the platform minimums for each are listed in the Banuba Face AR SDK documentation.
-
Creating a filter and running it are two separate jobs. You build the effect in any 3D graphical editor, convert it in Banuba Studio and preview it on a live camera, and the app your users touch runs the finished effect through Banuba Face AR SDK.
-
Two routes. You supply the 3D asset and convert it yourself, or Banuba custom-builds the masks for you, which is what happened for the influencer marketing app MNFST, where branded masks were made to order for promoted Instagram posts. You can see how the MNFST masks turned out in that write-up.
-
Banuba publishes no price list, and the Face AR SDK is priced on three things: the number of platforms you ship on, your monthly active users, and the feature set you enable. There are two license models: a flat annual fee that stays fixed however far your app scales, and an active-user model that starts lower and grows with usage. A 14-day free trial lets you test effects on a real stream before any of that, and both models are described on the Face AR SDK pricing page.
-
Yes. All tracking and rendering happen on the device; there is no cloud dependency, the SDK works offline, and camera frames never leave the phone. What sits on the device is around 15 Mb, depending on the feature set enabled, as explained in this Banuba FAQ entry.
