Facebook is preparing to launch a so-called smart speaker that has a large diagonal screen and allows you to make video calls through the social network, as Amazon Echo Show offers. The new product of the Facebook company will be called Portal, which is currently in the development process and will be completed by the end of the year, after which it will be put up for sale.
Facebook has always emphasized making video calls, making live broadcasts, and Portal is just a new method to convince more people to make video calls through its platform. Portal is developed by engineers who in the past also created a smartphone for Facebook, and who develop a variety of very interesting technologies, about which no one knows much.
Facebook intends to officially present Portal sometime in May, when the annual F8 conference should also take place where a variety of new products, either software or hardware, are presented. The bad part for those who expected Facebook to make something good and cheap is the fact that this product would cost no less than 500 dollars, an excessively high price for what it will offer.
Facebook launches a Smart speaker for video chat
Facebook will enter with Portal among the companies that develop their own products, and this is because in the past the company relied on HTC to develop the mobile phone that was launched under its brand. The problem is that Portal could have exactly the same fate as the phone, and this is because Facebook seems to be determined to sell the smart speaker at a much higher price than what should be charged for such a product.
"Facebook is about to jump into the consumer hardware business in a big way with a video chat device named "Portal," which will put it in direct competition with Amazon's hugely popular line of Echo voice-controlled devices. The device is designed to work in the home and represents Facebook's first serious foray into selling consumer hardware."
Facebook is launching it anyway to keep pace with Google, Amazon and Apple, all of these companies either have smart speakers launched or intend to launch such a product during 2018. Facebook wants people to make more video calls, sci-fi movies -they showed that this is the future, but now every mobile phone does it, so why would you need a smart speaker with a screen?
Facebook can no longer find ways to convince people to make video calls through its social network, but a product of this kind, at such a price, has little chance of solving something so complicated.
