According to a report by Protocol, Meta will soon stop selling its Portal smart display as a consumer product, and will instead focus on selling it to businesses. The company will also not make any future versions of the device geared toward consumers.
Portal made its debut in 2018 as a video calling-centric smart display, with several iterations released since then, including a portable Portal Go. However, Portal sales have not been able to compete with similar products from Amazon and Google, which is why Meta is now looking to target businesses instead.
The company wants to focus on businesses that are looking for ways to keep their hybrid workforce connected.
“The shift was first reported by The Information Thursday, which also said that the company was switching up its road map for AR glasses and postponing the launch of a consumer-ready AR product by a few years. All of this is part of efforts to control costs of Reality Labs, Meta’s unit focused on metaverse software and hardware.”
Existing Portal devices will continue to be sold by Meta for a limited time and buyers will also receive support for their purchases.
Want to see more of our stories on Google?
P.S. Want to keep this site truly independent? Support us by buying us a beer, treating us to a coffee, or shopping through Amazon here. Links in this post are affiliate links, so we earn a tiny commission at no charge to you. Thanks for supporting independent Canadian media!
Not unexpected. Sticking a tablet on a stand simply reduces the usefulness of the tablet. Was never really going to be something anyone bought.
Considering Meta uses Amazon’s Alexa on their smart display’s, and had to pay Amazon fee’s for each unit that was sold. Then it kinda makes sense for Meta to drop their smart display’s. Especially since Amazon and Google are constantly cutting their prices of their smart home devices, including their smart display’s. Then it’s pretty hard for Meta to keep up, and to make any money by selling them. They are just really helping out Amazon to sell more devices.
Oh, and btw, today roughly the same number of smart display’s are being sold for Google, and Amazon, as their sales for their smart speakers. Try and remember smart display’s do a lot more than any smart speaker. Plus you can touch the screen, or just use your voice. This isn’t dumb Siri afterall.