Facebook can’t stay out of the news. Going to Washington to testify about their privacy breeches, chain messages about hacked accounts, and copycats creating fake profiles to trick people’s friends. Today, the social media giant is in the the news for a different reason, they’ve released a smart speaker. Now you can keep Facebook Messenger always running in your home. Sound good?
Facebook Portal is a touchscreen smart speaker that seems to be created mostly to keep you connected with friends and family through messenger. The camera follows your face while you chat, allowing you to walk around the room or even talk with more than one person and then zoom in to focus on one or the other. The team claims that they use a 2d tracking technology, not face id in order to locate people in the room. This is to curb possible privacy concerns when it comes to facial recognition. Portal and Portal Plus also have an on/off switch for the mic, and a privacy clip that you can attach to cover the camera lens. It’s almost like the folks at Facebook think you don’t trust them with your privacy.
The smart speaker also connects to Spotify and Pandora and will use Alexa to connect to some smart home appliances and devices. You can watch videos on Facebook and Facebook Watch and they claim that more video partners are coming soon. (YouTube, Amazon Prime, and Netflix anyone?) One feature everyone thinks is neat is the ability to read stories for children through chat and use augmented reality filters to increase the fun of story time. The example used features the story of the three little pigs and not only does it progress through story artwork as you read but it puts the mask of the characters on the reader while they read that character’s lines. A fun idea to make young ones sit down and chat with grandma, gramps, or auntie for a while longer.
What Parents Should Know
My family doesn’t have a smart speaker in our home. Not even the one Amazon made for kids. I don’t like having an “always on” microphone hanging around. I’m pretty particular with how my data is used. I don’t mind Amazon using my shopping history to recommend things for me to purchase but I’d rather they not do so using my conversations with my wife.
Facebook is trying to ease users minds with their privacy focus on Portal. The audio chip that hears you call the wake word (Hey Portal) is separate from the one that sends audio to Facebook and even that is encrypted end to end. (The data is scrambled up for its whole journey across the internet from your device to Facebook and then to the recipient, if applicable.) They include the clip to cover the camera and even an on/off switch to disconnect the power to the microphone and camera.
These devices preach a message of connection and try to focus especially on connecting with older members of your family and to your kids. We know that connection over a screen isn’t always as beneficial as face to face connection but sometimes it IS our only option. In this case, a free standing device that exists mainly just for these kinds of connections (think, telephone in the 1980s) isn’t too outside the box. Even with all of their privacy additions, though, I still have a concern about putting a device with a camera and microphone in it in my living room that was designed by and always connected to Facebook.