Facebook’s portal device can now make zoom calls

Portal, Facebook’s device for making video calls that act as a digital image frame has had an early run.

Launched in the wake of multiple policy scandals rolling down the company, the device has gone from being treated suspiciously by critics to being more widely adopted by people desperate to communicate with other people during isolation with pandemic-induced.

Now, Facebook has announced a move that could make the Portal more palatable for those who are still reluctant to place a Facebook-owned camera in their home. The company adds support for additional video conferencing services popular in the business world. Zoom is the big one, but Webex, BlueJeans, and GoToMeeting are also coming to the Portal.

Previously, video chat on the Portal was limited to services owned by Facebook: Messenger, WhatsApp and Workplace (Facebook’s business oriented social platform). The various new apps will be added to Portal, Portal +, and Portal Mini throughout September, but will only come to Portal TV later in 2020.

In a not-quite-shared time, Google and Amazon also announced Wednesday that they are adding Zoom support to their Assistant-enabled smart displays and Alexa-enabled Echo displays, respectively. Owners of touchscreen devices – roughly analogous to the Portal – can use them for Zoom calls later this year by synchronizing the devices with whatever calendar they use for Zoom meetings.

We need to talk

By adding a few other business-friendly features in this update — Portal users can sign in directly to Workplace without linking to their personal Facebook account, and Portal’s touchscreen will now work with the virtual whiteboards in Zoom and BlueJeans – Facebook is envious to Portal as a tool for the age of widespread remote work.

“It’s a trend that is only accelerating and going nowhere,” says Micah Collins, director of product management at Facebook. “We absolutely want to invest in making Portal a great tool for remote workers, and we think that by offering more choice on how we can call and connect, we’re really making inroads there.”

Even with third-party video conferencing support, Portal is not exactly platform agnostic. Users do not need a Facebook account to use Portal, but they still need to sign in with WhatsApp or Workplace – platforms that are both owned by Facebook. (Similarly, smart screens from Google and Amazon require an account on the companies’ platforms.) Additional portal features, such as its voice assistant and the Story Time feature for reading virtual children’s books, are only available if you are logged in to Facebook.