Facebook has been busy designing new variants of its Portal video chatting devices. According to the company’s Vice President of AR/VR, Andrew Bosworth, Facebook plans to unveil new Portal models this fall. Bosworth has made the announcement on stage at the Code Conference in Phoenix, where he told the audience that the social network is releasing “new form factors” because “there’s a whole new generation of hardware coming out.” Facebook, he said, wants “to make sure that human connection, connection between two people, is a first-party experience” on a piece of hardware for the home.
The social network released the original model and its bigger sibling, the Portal+, in November 2018. They give avid Messenger users a way to make encrypted video chats using a smart camera that can follow them around while talking. Bosworth didn’t elaborate on what he means by “new form factors” we’ll just have to wait for the unveiling event to see what the models look like. In addition to revealing the new Portal models, Facebook is also expected made the original Portal and Portal+ available in Europe this fall.
Bosworth wouldn’t reveal exactly how many Portal and Portal Plus devices had been sold since their launch, but he described the numbers as “really good.” A camera-sporting device made by a company that doesn’t have the best reputation for user privacy sounds like a recipe for disaster, and things were looking bad when Facebook admitted the Portals could collect user data for ad targeting, but the Plus model has a 4.1 out of 5 rating on Amazon, likely helped by its $70 price reduction—and this is after Facebook told its employees to remove their five-star Portal reviews from the site.
Exactly what these new Portal form factors will look like is unclear, though TechCrunch believes it could be the “Ripley” device that appeared in Portal firmware code late last year. Cheddar wrote that Ripley was a camera that could sit on top of a regular TV, with the video feed sent directly to the screen. This should mean a reduction in price as no dedicated video chat hardware would be needed.
