Facebook Portal smart displays may soon no longer be sold to consumers
There are some products that were initially designed for the consumer market, but somehow found a lot more popularity amongst enterprise users. Some examples of that would be Google Glass and the Microsoft Kinect, both of which were initially targeted at consumers but were later found to be a lot more popular for other purposes.
It appears that the same is happening with Facebook Portal, Meta’s attempt at a consumer smart display, where it seems to have gained a lot of traction during the pandemic. So much so that according to a report from The Information (paywall), the company is planning to discontinue selling the Portal directly to consumers. Instead, they will be refocusing their efforts on business use cases.
In a way this shouldn’t be surprising. Facebook doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to consumer privacy, having been embroiled in many data-related scandals in the past, so for consumers to not trust Facebook or products with a built-in camera like the Portal doesn’t seem that surprising.
That being said, Meta is still selling the Portal on its website so if you’re keen on picking one up now, you still can. We’re not sure when Meta will stop selling the Portals directly to consumers, so if for whatever reason you want to own one, now might be a good time to buy it.
Source: Android Police