The Facebook Portal: A Smart Speaker with Limited Functionality and Some Quirks

We recently had the opportunity to try out the Facebook Portal, a smart speaker that allows users to interact with their Facebook account using voice commands. While it's an Alexa speaker, the Portal doesn't offer the same level of smart home connectivity as some other devices on the market. For example, if you're trying to access your Ring or Main S cameras' footage, you can't do so with the Portal, but you can with the Echo Show.

The Portal does offer some unique features, such as its camera capabilities and ability to make video calls. However, using voice commands can be a bit of a pain, especially if you're used to interacting with other smart speakers like Alexa. You have to think carefully about which "call words" you use, and the device only responds to certain phrases. For example, to make a phone call, you need to say "Hey Portal," but if you just ask Alexa for the weather, it won't work.

One of the more interesting features of the Portal is its ability to capture video calls. When we tried out the device, we were able to see our own face on the screen using the "Effects" feature. We could make ourselves look like a werewolf or a disco party star, and even add some fun phrases to our voice messages. However, we had to get creative to use this feature - we couldn't simply point the camera at someone and expect it to work.

We also had the opportunity to test out the Portal's video calling capabilities with one of our own team members, Dan. We used the Facebook Messenger app on Dan's phone to make a call, but unfortunately, the device only captured audio and not video. However, once we switched to using the Facebook Portal itself as the camera source, the call worked beautifully.

After testing out the Portal, we were struck by its limitations. Compared to other smart speakers like Alexa or Google Home, it feels a bit basic and restrictive. For example, if you just want to ask for the weather or set an alarm, you have to say "Hey Portal" instead of simply saying "Alexa" with your desired command.

One potential use case for the Portal is that it could be a convenient way for older relatives to stay in touch with family and friends who are on Facebook. The device's camera capabilities and ease of use make it accessible, even for those who may not be tech-savvy. However, we also realized that some people might find the Portal's limitations frustrating, especially if they're used to more advanced smart speakers.

The Portal is available for $349, which seems steep considering its limited functionality compared to other smart speakers on the market. However, Facebook does offer a smaller version of the device, the Portal Plus, with a 10-inch screen and a lower price point of $199. This might be a better option for those who want a more compact device that still offers some smart features.

As we conclude our review of the Facebook Portal, it's clear that this device is designed to be a convenient way for users to interact with their Facebook account using voice commands. While it has some unique features and potential use cases, its limitations may be frustrating for some users. We're hoping that Facebook will continue to develop and improve the Portal in the coming months, adding more features and functionality to make it a more appealing option for smart speaker fans.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwe're joined now by Kim Wetzel from our smart home editor hi hello Kim thank you so much for hopping in here this is the device that everybody's been talking about for quite a while Gossett II out of I couldn't say good or bad curiosity perhaps when it comes to this so why don't we walk through what this actually is that's sitting here in front of us this is the Facebook portal plus what does that mean yeah exactly so Facebook announced that they're gonna have this on their own device yeah and you know which was which is interesting move and it was supposed to be I from the looks of it it looked like it was gonna be a smart Oh mob or something along those lines and there's two different versions of the portal and the portal plus and this is a this is the Plus version which is much larger than I thought it was the massive version I mean it's bigger than your laptop yeah it is huge I mean yeah this this is a 15.6 inch screen it goes this way or this way if you do the side profile you'll see that it's got this bulky like speaker right here and it is really heavy so it does have a speaker on it I mean why don't we work from the beginning what is the Facebook what is this yeah it's kind of I guess it's sort of like a smart display like like a Amazon Alexa device like the echo show device with your screen the actual screen and stuff except for it does less okay but essentially if you are a facebook lover you can use this device to make phone calls to your friends do you know have contact with them it's kind of like a video calling device that's this primary function I have the option here here's some of my friends here's some of my favorites and if I were to tap on one of these you know these favorites I could give them a call and have a video chat with them even it has they have to have facebook Messenger on their phone so this is basically a different version of Facebook messenger that we're looking at on here like an adapted version kind of except it doesn't have the Facebook app on it so that's one of the things I was wondering like like if this is supposed to be like an echo show or I mean it's it's essentially it's a tablet I mean it's a giant tablet right but you were saying it doesn't do much so it doesn't have you can you add apps on to it can you watch videos on it as far as I know I cannot add apps that's another thing so it only comes with a certain comes with you can see I hurt radio news epen Dora Spotify I think it does have YouTube so you can watch YouTube on it the Food Network I imagine Facebook will be adding more apps but I have not figured out how to like there's no Play Store or there's no like I you know so they tried to go with their own essential since the ecosystem on this yeah without and they added kind of a few apps except for their own yeah which sounds kind of pointless if you're going to get something like this I mean one of the advantages you know is at customizing it yeah this is they're saying this these are the only ones that you that you can use and one of the things that I know I've asked is before the actual Facebook app isn't available for this as far as I know there's there's no Facebook app on the Facebook portal yeah so if you wanted to scroll through your Facebook feed mmm there's no way to do it on this device so it's kind of neat and like I did uh so they sent my mom one they asked me who else should we send this to and my mom is on Facebook all the time hi mom if you're watching and so they sent her one and like we can chat and she likes it she's on like I said she's on Facebook several hours a day but if you're not on Facebook several hours a day and you don't need to call everybody all day I'm I'm not sure yeah what you would be using it for it yeah there's a couple of interesting features so this is a camera up here a 140 degree field of view camera and so it does follow you around the room a little bit like yeah cuz it can track movement tracks movement and focuses only on you so if you walk on you know one side of the device there's the there's the camera right there and you can you know it'll it'll kind of follow you around the room creepy yeah well and smart I was I looked creepy to me yeah in part of it maybe it's just because you know Facebook and Facebook's had a few security issues you know recently yeah perhaps lends itself to being people being a little bit wary absolutely of that so it also has a speaker here on the bass it does have a speaker how's it sound so I put it next to the new echo show the echo show sounds better but this doesn't sound terrible I mean we could play like you know you could play music at a dinner party or when you're cooking or whatever and it's good enough okay it's a LexA enabled it is a LexA enable I mean we turn it off oh I just do not whoops so and yes everybody at home is now VF thank you for saying that so so it's enable for that it's got the speaker and you said that it does you know as far as the video call feature that's kind of the main thing if I'm understanding correctly I think yeah I think that's fair it does have the I thought I'd turned off Alexa but she's still going off all right that was my bad I was wondering I was gonna talk about that yeah I'm so yeah it is an Alexa speaker but it doesn't give you the opportunity to like if you were interested in like smart home connectivity it's it's limited okay HBU camera footage for example on this so if I were to try to get my ring or main s cameras footage on here you can't do that but you can't do that with the echo show it just seems so weird to limit that functionality on it it is weird and then you have to in order to use your voice can voice control for the Facebook aspect of it you have to say hey portal but if you're doing other stuff like just need to you know figure out who the 20th President of the United States is you say Alexa so okay there's two different you know ways to voice control it so you can't yet so you have to think about how you're gonna interact with it as far as what the what the call words are yeah um can we tribe making a phone call with it absolutely taking it let's see we got a guinea pig on on hold for okay Oh let's get your code one more time everybody yeah close attention to that mm-hmm okay so let's find again this already seems like it's kind of I mean just for me personally this already seems like it's a pain to use okay so we're calling Dan is works here at Digital Trends one of our videographers and let's see oh I was down there hi Dan how's it going wait you can only see the cameras right I don't know how we should do this hi oh yeah Dan cannoli well now he could probably see our monitors there Oh probably all right so so Dan are you on a phone right now or on you or are you a what's that okay so this just rang through your messenger app you okay how do we sorry I don't know where to put our guys I don't know where to put the camera um can you how do I looked I look fantastic yeah such a conversationalist so I don't know if the camera is able to like close up but there is kind of something fun I can do I can click on effects and I can give myself a werewolf face okay Wow I can also um this is one of my favorites here I can make um I can make myself into a disco party oh you guys can't see any of this naked yeah there we go now they can see your disco party alright and then look at what are you there I don't know blues brother blues sister me yeah I heard somebody just say Walter White maybe maybe yeah Heisenberg so Dan what plans you have for this weekend sounds pretty awesome so this is the sample conversation between Kim and Dan yes everything okay well well Dan we appreciate you being our guinea pig and letting us talk to you of course all right yeah very good you too right all right I mean I can see how that would be you know that'd be kind of nice I can see some event but somebody from a long distance away if you think about your grant I don't know like do you have like older relatives who are on Facebook all the time like I know my mom is no I don't accept those friend requests oh yeah smart thinking yep I hide myself from Kip but if you did I mean if you're like I know like I said my mom's on it all the time and so she this gives her the an easy way to talk to people you know have a little fun with it too I can see that as being you know I like the idea of it well what's the price on this brace ourselves this is three hundred and forty-nine dollars see that's where I'm instantly out yeah forty-nine dollars why wouldn't I just get like a tablet and stick it on something that's what you know are saying people will walk by my duster like what I could do it I have an iPad I could do the same yeah exactly yeah in you know Skype or whatever you're you know yeah the they do have a smaller version that's tenant with a 10-inch screen that looks more like the echo show and it is a hundred and ninety-nine dollars okay I do believe they are going on sale for Black Friday they're doing a bundle so if you like say oh I want this device and I want my mother to have one too or my grandparents I went to you can get a discount I'm not sure what the disc I'd have to go go look it up but you are interested in this device it is on sale for Black Friday from Oh companies well we do have a lot of guys up for a Black Friday for all of that as well well all right that is the facebook portal this is the portal plus yes Jim thank you for dropping us off we'll have a full review at but Digital Trends Carl a sir what's your Monday yeahwe're joined now by Kim Wetzel from our smart home editor hi hello Kim thank you so much for hopping in here this is the device that everybody's been talking about for quite a while Gossett II out of I couldn't say good or bad curiosity perhaps when it comes to this so why don't we walk through what this actually is that's sitting here in front of us this is the Facebook portal plus what does that mean yeah exactly so Facebook announced that they're gonna have this on their own device yeah and you know which was which is interesting move and it was supposed to be I from the looks of it it looked like it was gonna be a smart Oh mob or something along those lines and there's two different versions of the portal and the portal plus and this is a this is the Plus version which is much larger than I thought it was the massive version I mean it's bigger than your laptop yeah it is huge I mean yeah this this is a 15.6 inch screen it goes this way or this way if you do the side profile you'll see that it's got this bulky like speaker right here and it is really heavy so it does have a speaker on it I mean why don't we work from the beginning what is the Facebook what is this yeah it's kind of I guess it's sort of like a smart display like like a Amazon Alexa device like the echo show device with your screen the actual screen and stuff except for it does less okay but essentially if you are a facebook lover you can use this device to make phone calls to your friends do you know have contact with them it's kind of like a video calling device that's this primary function I have the option here here's some of my friends here's some of my favorites and if I were to tap on one of these you know these favorites I could give them a call and have a video chat with them even it has they have to have facebook Messenger on their phone so this is basically a different version of Facebook messenger that we're looking at on here like an adapted version kind of except it doesn't have the Facebook app on it so that's one of the things I was wondering like like if this is supposed to be like an echo show or I mean it's it's essentially it's a tablet I mean it's a giant tablet right but you were saying it doesn't do much so it doesn't have you can you add apps on to it can you watch videos on it as far as I know I cannot add apps that's another thing so it only comes with a certain comes with you can see I hurt radio news epen Dora Spotify I think it does have YouTube so you can watch YouTube on it the Food Network I imagine Facebook will be adding more apps but I have not figured out how to like there's no Play Store or there's no like I you know so they tried to go with their own essential since the ecosystem on this yeah without and they added kind of a few apps except for their own yeah which sounds kind of pointless if you're going to get something like this I mean one of the advantages you know is at customizing it yeah this is they're saying this these are the only ones that you that you can use and one of the things that I know I've asked is before the actual Facebook app isn't available for this as far as I know there's there's no Facebook app on the Facebook portal yeah so if you wanted to scroll through your Facebook feed mmm there's no way to do it on this device so it's kind of neat and like I did uh so they sent my mom one they asked me who else should we send this to and my mom is on Facebook all the time hi mom if you're watching and so they sent her one and like we can chat and she likes it she's on like I said she's on Facebook several hours a day but if you're not on Facebook several hours a day and you don't need to call everybody all day I'm I'm not sure yeah what you would be using it for it yeah there's a couple of interesting features so this is a camera up here a 140 degree field of view camera and so it does follow you around the room a little bit like yeah cuz it can track movement tracks movement and focuses only on you so if you walk on you know one side of the device there's the there's the camera right there and you can you know it'll it'll kind of follow you around the room creepy yeah well and smart I was I looked creepy to me yeah in part of it maybe it's just because you know Facebook and Facebook's had a few security issues you know recently yeah perhaps lends itself to being people being a little bit wary absolutely of that so it also has a speaker here on the bass it does have a speaker how's it sound so I put it next to the new echo show the echo show sounds better but this doesn't sound terrible I mean we could play like you know you could play music at a dinner party or when you're cooking or whatever and it's good enough okay it's a LexA enabled it is a LexA enable I mean we turn it off oh I just do not whoops so and yes everybody at home is now VF thank you for saying that so so it's enable for that it's got the speaker and you said that it does you know as far as the video call feature that's kind of the main thing if I'm understanding correctly I think yeah I think that's fair it does have the I thought I'd turned off Alexa but she's still going off all right that was my bad I was wondering I was gonna talk about that yeah I'm so yeah it is an Alexa speaker but it doesn't give you the opportunity to like if you were interested in like smart home connectivity it's it's limited okay HBU camera footage for example on this so if I were to try to get my ring or main s cameras footage on here you can't do that but you can't do that with the echo show it just seems so weird to limit that functionality on it it is weird and then you have to in order to use your voice can voice control for the Facebook aspect of it you have to say hey portal but if you're doing other stuff like just need to you know figure out who the 20th President of the United States is you say Alexa so okay there's two different you know ways to voice control it so you can't yet so you have to think about how you're gonna interact with it as far as what the what the call words are yeah um can we tribe making a phone call with it absolutely taking it let's see we got a guinea pig on on hold for okay Oh let's get your code one more time everybody yeah close attention to that mm-hmm okay so let's find again this already seems like it's kind of I mean just for me personally this already seems like it's a pain to use okay so we're calling Dan is works here at Digital Trends one of our videographers and let's see oh I was down there hi Dan how's it going wait you can only see the cameras right I don't know how we should do this hi oh yeah Dan cannoli well now he could probably see our monitors there Oh probably all right so so Dan are you on a phone right now or on you or are you a what's that okay so this just rang through your messenger app you okay how do we sorry I don't know where to put our guys I don't know where to put the camera um can you how do I looked I look fantastic yeah such a conversationalist so I don't know if the camera is able to like close up but there is kind of something fun I can do I can click on effects and I can give myself a werewolf face okay Wow I can also um this is one of my favorites here I can make um I can make myself into a disco party oh you guys can't see any of this naked yeah there we go now they can see your disco party alright and then look at what are you there I don't know blues brother blues sister me yeah I heard somebody just say Walter White maybe maybe yeah Heisenberg so Dan what plans you have for this weekend sounds pretty awesome so this is the sample conversation between Kim and Dan yes everything okay well well Dan we appreciate you being our guinea pig and letting us talk to you of course all right yeah very good you too right all right I mean I can see how that would be you know that'd be kind of nice I can see some event but somebody from a long distance away if you think about your grant I don't know like do you have like older relatives who are on Facebook all the time like I know my mom is no I don't accept those friend requests oh yeah smart thinking yep I hide myself from Kip but if you did I mean if you're like I know like I said my mom's on it all the time and so she this gives her the an easy way to talk to people you know have a little fun with it too I can see that as being you know I like the idea of it well what's the price on this brace ourselves this is three hundred and forty-nine dollars see that's where I'm instantly out yeah forty-nine dollars why wouldn't I just get like a tablet and stick it on something that's what you know are saying people will walk by my duster like what I could do it I have an iPad I could do the same yeah exactly yeah in you know Skype or whatever you're you know yeah the they do have a smaller version that's tenant with a 10-inch screen that looks more like the echo show and it is a hundred and ninety-nine dollars okay I do believe they are going on sale for Black Friday they're doing a bundle so if you like say oh I want this device and I want my mother to have one too or my grandparents I went to you can get a discount I'm not sure what the disc I'd have to go go look it up but you are interested in this device it is on sale for Black Friday from Oh companies well we do have a lot of guys up for a Black Friday for all of that as well well all right that is the facebook portal this is the portal plus yes Jim thank you for dropping us off we'll have a full review at but Digital Trends Carl a sir what's your Monday yeah\n"