Cassidy’s Blog

Moment Cases No Longer Support M-Series Lenses for Google Pixel Phones

Despite an “upgrade guarantee,” there are no plans for M-Series photo cases for Pixel 7

Moment made a name for themselves by providing quality mobile photography lenses and cases for iPhones, Pixels, and Samsung Galaxy phones, but it seems the company will have to switch things up due to ever-changing phone camera optics.

In 2017, just a month before Pixel 2 was released, Moment went so far as to provide a “guarantee” that they would “make new photo cases for iPhone, Pixel, and Galaxy devices from here until the end of cell phones!” The video ends with a link to shopmoment.com/guarantee, which at the time lead to an accompanying web page repeating the “Photo Case Upgrade Guarantee.” However, after just five years they’ve seemingly reneged on their guarantee and no longer offer M-Series photo cases for the Pixel 6a and Pixel 7 phones.

In their Pixel 7 case Q&A section, Moment cites “changes in the field of view of the onboard cameras” of the Pixel 7 series for their lack of M-Series lens support. Curiously, Moment did make an M-Series lens mount case for Pixel 6 series which shares the same main sensor as the Pixel 7 series, but warned that “M-Series lenses may vignette when used with Pixel 6 & Pixel 6 Pro.”

Starting with the Pixel 6a (which reused the sensor from the Pixel 5), the Moment Case lacks the M-Series mounting hardware altogether. Despite this, Moment still lists the cases at the same $50 price point as previous models that supported their lenses. To make matters worse, their clip-on M-Series Lens Mount does not support the Pixel 7 series, either, as it doesn’t fit over the phones’ camera bar.

Curiously, according to The Internet Archive Wayback Machine, Moment updated their guarantee page to redirect to a generic warranty page some time between September and November, 2020. The video version of the guarantee is still public on YouTube, however.

This ordeal comes after Moment released their “Moment Pro Camera” app which brought manual controls, focus peaking and zebra stripes, and anamorphic lens support to Android—then discontinued its development after just two years.

Maybe there is hope?

Moment’s video did mention they couldn’t guarantee Moment lenses would work with every device until they tried the phone themselves, but then followed it by stating, “but we promise to bring new glass to your phone.” According to Moment on Twitter, they are “trying to work to get a mount put into production that will let you still use the lenses on Pixel devices.” Apparently the company is “working on better/more mounting solutions” and hope to have a solution for Pixel 7 “soon.”

This sounds like it could be an update to the aforementioned clip-on lens mount, and could be a stopgap solution for people like me who have accrued hundreds or thousands of dollars of Moment lenses, filters, and accessories that aren’t currently usable with their new Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro.

However, I do wonder with the ever-increasing sensor sizes if it’s time for Moment to design a new lens system altogether, like they had to do when their original O-Series lenses (from the iPhone 5 era!) were simply too small to work well on newer phones, leading to the current M-Series lenses.

Perhaps they’ll move away from the mobile photography lenses altogether, and focus solely on MagSafe-compatible mobile photography accessories—which are supported on their Pixel cases with their “(M)Force” magnet array.