The Facebook Portal smart speaker, which does video calls as well, was launched by the company in November last year. The obvious question that some of you might have is whether the company plans on launching new iterations of the product. The answer appears to be a resounding yes. There will be new Portal hardware from Facebook towards the end of this year.
Facebook’s vice president of AR/VR Andrew Bosworth confirmed to The Verge that Facebook is going to have a “lot more that we’re going to unveil later in this fall,” adding that there will be “new form factors that we’re going to be shipping.”
No further information has been provided about what the new form factors might be. One report suggested that Facebook was working on a product which would enable users to utilize its video calling service using their big TV. The camera device would simply attach to the top of the TV and then show the video feed on the big screen. This would eliminate the need for people to have a dedicated device for video chat and also put this capability in a much more central location in people’s homes.
Facebook may also have other form factors in the pipeline, possibly a more affordable option, which would go a long way in expanding the reach of its Portal hardware to more people. We might not find that out for sure until later this year, though.
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