Zoom comes to Google Nest, Amazon Echo, and Facebook Portal smart displays

Zoom will later expand to a variety of new devices later this year, with the company announcing that the Amazon Echo Show, Facebook Portal, and Google Nest Hub Max will support the widely used video conferencing app later this year.

It’s a big extension for Zoom, which recently started to deepen into its own licensed video conferencing hardware. And smart monitors – with their high-quality directional microphones and built-in touchscreens – are practically designed to be good video conferencing devices.

The new Zoom integration is also a big deal for Google, Amazon, and Facebook, given that all three of these companies are almost exclusively sticking to their own, in-house video chat solutions (like Google Meet and Facebook Messenger) on their smart shows. The Portal will be the first to receive Zoom, with an elaboration planned for this September.

Each of the three solutions will implement Zoom a little differently. Facebook’s portals devices will add a Zoom app (along with new apps for BlueJeans, GoToMeeting and Webex, which were also announced today), and will rely on Facebook’s “smart camera” technology to automatically keep you in frame, just like it does for Facebook’s own Messenger and WhatsApp conversations.

In addition, Facebook makes the Portal less dependent on your personal Facebook accounts: instead of requiring a Facebook or WhatsApp account to log in to a Portal, the company adds an option to use a work-oriented Facebook Workplace account in the coming weeks. ”

On the other hand, Google will rely on the strength of its calendar and assistant services, which can automatically pull existing Zoom meetings directly from your calendar and allow users to start meetings with voice commands such as “Hey Google, do with my next meeting. ”(Unfortunately, limiting Google Nest Hubs to a single account will make it less useful for juggling and personal Zoom meetings.)

Alexa customers will also get a similar experience. Echo-show devices that are synchronized with your calendar can start meetings automatically without the need for users to enter a meeting ID or password manually, and it also supports Alexa voice controls. Amazon’s rollout will begin later this year, starting with the Echo Show 8.