Facebook Has Launched Portal — First Video Chat Device with Alexa

Facebook has launched a video calling device called Portal which is powered by Alexa.

Facebook has launched its own hardware for video chat.

(Photo: Facebook)

Social networking portal Facebook has launched its very own video chat-enabled hardware dubbed Portal also available in a Plus variant. These are laser-focused smart video chatting displays, which come equipped with built-in microphone.

These is the first hardware duo to be marketed under the Facebook brand and will support Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa for users to control the device, with Google Assistant likely to hit the device in the coming months.

The Portal can be used for video calling other Portal users and connects people using either Facebook or its Messenger platform. Apart from video calling, Facebook’s Portals can play music through Spotify and Pandora, stream video from Facebook video platform Watch.

Facebook Portal (left) and Portal+ (right).(Photo: Facebook)

For better and for worse, you can’t even browse Facebook and that’s probably worth highlighting for people worried about his/her data.

As for its hardware specifications, the Portal comes with a 10-inch 1280 x 800 pixels resolution display, while the Portal+ sports a 15-inch 1920 x 1080 pixels display that pivots according to the users' preference.

The smaller Portal looks quite similar to amazon’s Echo while the bigger Portal+ looks like a big computer monitor placed vertically with a wide-angle camera on the top of it.

As of now, the Portal and Portal+ are available for pre-order in the US $199 (Rs 14,700 approx) and Portal+ for $349 (Rs 25,800 approx).

The Portal comes with a smart camera that is capable of tracking the user wherever they are and adjust its angle accordingly. If there are multiple people in the room, the camera switches to a wide angle mode to accommodate multiple users.

For a single user, the camera zooms into the user’s face to fit them in the frame.

Facebook has been caught in a controversial storm for a while now with the Cambridge Analytica fiasco and also the recent data breach where a bug in Facebook’s upcoming feature has affected almost 50 million Facebook users.

Clearly, the company has lost trust in the eyes of a lot of users around the world which is why many have even opted to move out of the platform citing privacy concerns. Facebook has been careless with user data and many still consider the platform unsafe.

Amidst this, is launching a device which requires users to users to login via Facebook even a good idea, that too with camera and a microphone that can track your movement and activities?

Well, at least it’s not India’s problem, since the Portal duo are unlikely to launch in the country anytime soon.