Do you know about Portal? This is a new gadget category that is described for making video calls, responding to voice commands and listening to music. In fact this can be done even on your phone. It is really rare that now a new gadget will serve the true need. You do not need Facebook Portal that allows you to make video calls as the primary purpose. These microphones have equipped camera screens to stay at a fixed location in the kitchen, living room or in your bedroom.
Are you a tech savvy and love trying new things, there are no qualms on privacy and some things worth considering are:
This device, Facebook’s $349 Portal Plus is ideal for making video calls with Messenger. It is gigantic measuring diagonally 15.6 inches, or roughly the window size of many microwave ovens. Of course, there is a smaller sibling, referred to as the Portal, at $199.
Both models allow you to chat on their own portal with other people or even through the Messenger app. The Portal may do few things such as tap the Alexa voice assistant of Amazon, though these features stay tacked.
How Portal is different?
Comparing the Home Hub of Google at $129 and Amazons Echo Show at $230 may do lots, but certainly the capabilities of video calling are not really good as the Portals. You can see with Home Hub the person calling you, though the device does not have camera to support two-way videos.
In case video calling is your need, it is better to have a Portal. This is because the device camera easily recognizes people who are in a room and also may follow as they move around. It means you can move up and down literally as you argue with someone close by.
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However, Facebook confirms that it does not employ the technology of facial recognition to identify individuals.
Portal also has a “story time” cute feature adding face masks and other animation to kids while you are on the call other side. You can add multiple users and in this way different people can call in their household a circle of friends.
The best news is that you can make calls to Smartphone’s from these devices, though with Portal’s, you require the device to tell animated stories. Traveling parents need not worry about reading at home for their kids. Portal also does not work with WhatsApp; though setting the device is simple.