The move to the television was foreshadowed two months earlier when The Information reported Facebook was building a TV device using Portal tech and had approached Netflix, Disney, and other streamers (that sourcing). At $149, Portal TV undercuts every prior Portal price point and shifts the product from a dedicated screen to an accessory riding the biggest screen in the house.
First-order effects
Facebook gets its camera-and-microphone hardware into the shared living room for half the original Portal's entry price, making November 5 the first time its devices target households rather than individuals.
Facebook Watch gains a co-viewing surface: shows designed for solo phone scrolling get repositioned as lean-back TV content on the largest display at home.
Second-order effects
The streamers Facebook approached — Netflix and Disney among them, per The Information — now face a distribution decision: join a social-video-calling platform or leave that screen real estate to rivals and Amazon's competing ecosystem, which Portal already integrates via Alexa.
Smart-TV makers and streaming-stick vendors gain a new competitor selling a camera accessory rather than an app layer, forcing them to decide whether video calling is a feature they must bundle themselves.
Third-order effects
If the pattern from Portal to Portal TV holds — each generation cheaper, more ambient, more integrated with third-party services — Facebook's device strategy points toward hardware as a low-margin funnel for watch-time and communication data rather than a profit center, echoing the original Portal's positioning as an Echo Show rival since its earliest leaks.
Living-room video calling becoming mainstream would normalize always-present home cameras on shared screens, raising the privacy stakes for regulators already scrutinizing Facebook's hardware and data practices.
The trend: Facebook is iterating Portal from premium countertop screens toward cheap, ambient living-room accessories that turn its video and Watch content into default TV experiences.
@Techmeme The true potential of Facebook's Portal TV? Just hanging out. Like Fortnite, video co-watching on the couch gives us to be together, apart. The clip-on camera might be unique enough to offset the creepiness https://twitter.com/...
The Portal has changed the way we communicate with family. Our kids (5 and 3) spend tons of time talking with their grandparents and friends and can use it by themselves. So excited for this next generation! https://twitter.com/...
Facebook Portals make up an estimated 4% of smart-display sales. That's not stopping Facebook from making more, for some reason. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Facebook has taken some commendable privacy steps for its new Portal video chatting hardware, but I'm not sure anything could be enough to get me to trust this company. @meganwollerton also doesn't see the appeal: https://www.cnet.com/... pic.twitter.com/s6nW0eXoid
@Techmeme Facebook VP Boz defends keeping human reviews of voice clips on by default, saying recognition needs to improve to help those with accents or speech impediments https://techcrunch.com/... https://twitter.com/...
“If you can get past Facebook's toxic brand...” - @JoshConstine Hard pass. The fact Facebook and the executive leading this division can continue to launch in this category with the current, still-active lawsuits is nuts." https://twitter.com/...
Today we're announcing the new Portal, Portal Mini and Portal TV. With new features, lower price point and the engineering work to get us here, we're still most proud of how video calling feels on these devices. https://newsroom.fb.com/...
Facebook just launched a video camera that looks like Kinect for your TV. A Facebook-controller camera in my living room? no thanks https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Facebook continues to be the most tone deaf company in tech. Here's a camera for your tv from a company that I definitely would never let put a camera in my home!!!1 https://www.theverge.com/...
Aka not only does our app record and track everything you say on a daily basis and store it in a server farm in Utah, we are now going to illegally record you 24/7 in your household and you won't know it. #DeleteFacebook shits scary https://twitter.com/...
Casual reminder that the CEO of Facebook puts electric tape over his own webcam. If you give Facebook access to a camera in your living room, you're out of your goddamn mind. https://www.theguardian.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Not defending Facebook here, especially because opt-in seems to be the way politically things are headed after how Apple handled Siri, but at least FB doesn't bury the opt-out option. @boztank told me it'll be part of the setup process now. Small progress is still progress https:…
This is why people don't trust tech companies. “We know it makes you uncomfortable, but we're gonna do it anyway. So you should totally buy our listening devices.” Combined with “We promise not to do a scary privacy-related thing without telling you... again. Cross our hearts.” h…
Facebook has been storing all your ‘Hey Portal’ voice commands — by default and without an opt-out — and sending them to contractors to transcribe. It paused that last month, but is soon resuming it with an opt-out. Great reporting by @KurtWagner8. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Facebook paused having staff/contractors listen to audio clips from Portal devices—which it hadn't disclosed, or not clearly. Now it's restarting the human review, but with disclosure and more control. So yay, I guess? https://www.bloomberg.com/...