Facebook’s Portal devices may still have plenty of privacy questions lingering around them since launch, but that hasn’t swayed the company’s dedication to bringing more video chat hardware to market.
Onstage at Vox Media’s Code Convention, Facebook’s VP of AR/VR Andrew Bosworth shares that sales of the existing hardware were “really good,” but more interestingly let fly that there would be new form factors of Portal hardware coming to market in the fall of this year.
Most signs point to this device being the “Ripley” device that popped up in Portal firmware code late last year. Cheddar had reported that the camera device would attach to the top of a TV and pipe the video feed to its screen. This cuts down on the need to have a wholly dedicated video chat device and allows Facebook to put their hardware in more central locations in people’s homes.
There is of course the possibility that Facebook has even more form factors up their sleeves, but this seems like a potentially low-cost option that would make a lot of sense for them to get out there.