Social media giant Facebook made an aggressive foray into the hardware industry by launching a smart speaker with a screen and a camera, specially designed to ease video calls.
The device, known as Portal, comes with a couple of unique features. Prominent among them is a user detection system, which has a signature wide angle camera that will automaticallly zoom in on a person's face and follow them as they move around a room. The idea behind the new device is to make the video chats more like actually hanging out together.
Portal’s camera, which uses artificial intelligence to recognise body shapes, is a major marketing point, offering users the convenience of staying in the frame without having to adjust the device.
However, the launch of the product comes at a tricky time for Facebook. The company has been besieged by privacy issues stemming from the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and, more recently, a massive hack that may have compromised 50 million users.
Facebook is pretty much aware of the concerns of users and the company has tried to ensure privacy. Each Portal device has a plastic cover that can slide over the camera. It also comes with a mute button, that cuts power to the microphone and Facebook says the encrypted video streams are not recorded anywhere. Facebook Live, the company's tool for broadcasting videos live, is not even an option on the Portal.
Facebook Portal | via Facebook
The device will be available in two variants, Portal and Portal+. The smaller of the pair, Portal, comes with a price tag of $199, has a 10-inch screen, and looks very similar to the Amazon Echo Show and third-party Google Assistant smart screens. The larger Portal+ is available at a price of $349 and has a 15-inch rotating screen on a bulky mount with a camera on top.
Both devices display photos and notifications from Facebook and videos from Food Network, but offer only a few other applications.
Portal integrates Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant to handle search queries, and Amazon collects audio files of requests made to Alexa.
Additional features are available during calls, including joint listening on Spotify. A handful of animated e-books will also be included for interactive story time.
Portal runs on the open-source version of Google’s Android mobile operating system, similar to many Amazon devices.
