What you need to know
- Zoom is now available on the Facebook Portal in select countries.
- The service was announced to be on its way back in August.
- Netflix is also coming to the Portal alongside a new dedicated remote.
Zoom announced back in August that it would be coming to more smart displays including the Google Nest Hub, Echo Show, and the Facebook Portal. Now its finally here, at least on the Facebook Portal. The company today announced the availability of the video conferencing service this morning.
Zoom is now available on Portal Mini, Portal and Portal+ in all regions where Portal is sold, i.e Australia, Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Micah Collins, Director of Portal Product Management at Facebook, said:
Together, Portal and Zoom create an immersive calling experience that can go from powering your workday to connecting you with family and friends, with one dedicated device. Portal's big screen frees up your laptop so you can stay productive, while the AI-powered Smart Camera makes work and personal communication effortless by always keeping you in the frame.
Facebook is also adding Netflix support to the Portal. It'll be debuting a new remote that'll make it easy to access popular streaming options like Prime Video and Netflix, and it'll also support Facebook Watch. Once again, this will be limited to the countries where Facebook Portal is being sold. Google also launched Netflix support for the Google Nest Hub earlier in the year with the same restriction, so it's nothing that's out of the ordinary for this class of devices.
Other features Facebook is bringing to Portal include expanded language support for the "Hey Portal" hotword. It'll be made available to Spanish (US) from today, and the company notes that it's coming to other languages, though it did not specify which ones or give a timeframe.
The Portal Mini is the cheapest Portal that Facebook sells. With hardware switches for the microphone and camera, it's also one to look at if you're concerned about privacy.
