Sources: Facebook is working on a video chat device with wide angle lens and large touchscreen, which could be announced at F8, and a standalone smart speaker
Facebook wants to put a video chat screen in your home (complete with AI assistant tools) http://www.bloomberg.com/... David Pierce / @pierce : Having to buy a new gadget for each video chat app is a hilarious nightmare that is definitely going to come true https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Bloomberg's sourcing on a wide-angle video chat screen and a standalone speaker turned out to be the first sketch of what became Portal: by January 2018 Cheddar reported Facebook planned to unveil an Echo Show-style device at F8, and that fall it shipped two sizes at $199 and $349, well under the originally floated price points [[a:925588]]. The Verge's teardown of the shipping product is the tell about strategy — Alexa, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and Facebook Watch are built in, but there is no browser and no way to check Facebook or Messenger itself [[a:934288]].
So this is not a Facebook app in a box; it is a camera-and-screen appliance that rents Amazon's assistant and third-party media while keeping Facebook's own software off the device. That split — Facebook supplying the hardware and the camera stack, Amazon supplying the voice layer — is the most analytically interesting part of the story, and it lands squarely in the assistant-as-operating-layer fight where whoever owns the voice surface owns the home entry point.
First-order effects
- Facebook enters consumer hardware directly against Amazon's Echo Show, but its debut devices ship with Alexa built in, making Amazon both competitor and supplier on the same product.
- The pricing collapse from the reported ~$499 plan to $199/$349 at launch signals Facebook is subsidizing to buy placement in living rooms rather than to make margin on units.
Second-order effects
- Amazon gains distribution for Alexa inside a rival's flagship device, extending its assistant footprint without building the camera hardware itself — a template other assistant owners will notice.
- Music and media services (Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio) get a new living-room surface negotiated through Facebook, shifting some bundling leverage toward whoever controls the device's default slots.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, big platforms stop competing on full-stack assistants and instead assemble hardware from each other's components, with the voice layer becoming a licensable utility rather than a differentiator.
- A Facebook-branded camera in the home also raises the privacy-trust question that will shadow every subsequent social-platform hardware attempt — the company's data reputation becomes a hardware sales variable.
The trend: Consumer internet platforms are moving from apps into home hardware, but increasingly by licensing rivals' assistants rather than building their own voice stacks.