Portal from Facebook. Smart, Hands-Free Video Calling with Alexa Built-in (Gen 1)

Videoconferencing is extremely good, interface is simple enough for folks in their 70’s to call my daughter and see their great grandson. That’s priceless. The paranoia about privacy is somewhat valid but offset by the benefit. It does Alexa, for what that’s worth - cool when it works, frustrating when it repeatedly won’t. Picture frame is nice feature. The other apps are lacking, mainly due to the platform. Screen keyboard is slow because of the angle.It’s not a tablet, so you can’t type with your thumbs. It has no battery and it’s not portable. So it’s a lot like a baby monitor, except the video is immersively good. It’s telepresence, you’re about 30% “there”, which is amazing when you’re actuallt 2000 miles away. It was intermittently choppy at my dad’s with his spotty 1.5mbps dsl, but it always worked way better than Skype or FaceTime.

We are missionaries over seas and this is great to have to keep in touch with our new twin grandsons. Looking forward to doing the stories with them as they get older. We love that we can both be in the video chat and not trying to squeeze in on the phone one. I do miss the feature of being able to take pics like on the cell phone. But we love it and love the auto adjust for moving and other people coming in the frame too. I love the hands free it offers!! It helps with the time difference because usually one of us is in the middle of cooking or preparing dinner when we talk. Super thrilled with ours so far. Just got it about 3 months ago.

My family is spread out all over the country, and so I've been looking for ways to help us feel closer together. Over the years we've tried video calling from smartphones, laptops, iPads, Echo Shows.. you name it. This Christmas I went all-in and bought 3 Portals and NOTHING has been as fun or as easy as these... we love them!- I bought one for the grandparents - PERFECT grandparent gift. Walk up, tap a photo, and you're calling.. the UX is very simple. It's the first device that has been simple enough that my grandparents feel empowered to initiate video calls.- I bought one for my sister with young kids - they LOVE story mode and also all of the built-in effects/costumes. Picture quality seems way clearer than what we used to use (Facebook Messenger on iOS).. and selfishly I love being able to see my nieces and nephews so much more clearly.- I bought one for my parents.. they love it. Finally they can both fit in the screen, unlike when they were always trying to awkwardly hold their iPhones in selfie mode before.I am not affiliated with Facebook in any way, and I'll admit, I wish some other company had invented this product. But this whole thing works so well for my family because it's built on top of Facebook Messenger (which is what we already used to message each other)... and it means we can answer video calls on our phones, laptops, etc. if we're not at home and near the Portal.Small things I wish were better:- It has Alexa but doesn't work with the Ring doorbells- The photo slideshow mode is ok, but didn't surface a lot of gems (personally I wish it drew from Google Photos)- The first day she got it, my nephew went wild and called all of my sisters facebook friends.. she wishes there was a way to "lock it down" to family only- My grandparents often can't hear their portal ringing in a multi-room house (once I had to call their phone to tell them to pick up on their Portal)

This is an amazing product. I bought one for myself, hubby is working out of state, he got one and my daughter and son-in-law live in another state and they got one too! We can all three get on one call, the picture is so clear, much better than FaceTime. Does not freeze up or disconnect and this 62 year old lady was able to figure out how to set it up and use it. I am not by any means IT inclined but this was easy and coming from someone like me that is saying quite a bit about how user friendly it really is. Highly recommend this if you have loved ones you do not to get to see in person often.

The portal no longer recognizes the voice command (Hey portal), so you can play music without pushing buttons! Alexa no longer works, the backgrounds and fun things to do on video calls will end in 4/4/25, so it basically will be speaker and you can make calls but it all has to be done by pushing buttons. The original portal I had was fabulous!! You could say Alexa play pandora, or hey portal call whoever. That has ended as of 1/31/25! They don’t mention this when selling this device now, so beware!

It's the closest thing to being there. I read stories to my grandchildren every night. We all look forward to our portal time. It really is so much more bonding than facetime. The interactive classic stories are genius! If you're concerned about big brother you probably won't like it. If you refuse to have Alexa know she's in there. For me, being able to spend precious quality time with my kids and grandkids who are military far outweighs privacy concerns. There is a camera cover, a microphone and camera off option, or what I do simply unplug it when not in use.