Meta to Stop Selling Consumer Versions of Its Portal Smart Displays

pcmag.com:

You don't need a smart display in the metaverse, apparently.

Meta is killing the consumer version of its Portal smart display and will instead focus on marketing it as an enterprise device, according to The Information(Opens in a new window). If you want to add a Portal to your smart home setup, act fast: Meta will continue selling it until it runs out of inventory, Variety confirms(Opens in a new window).

The current lineup features four models: a 10-inch Portal ($179), 14-inch Portal+ ($349), HDTV-compatible Portal TV (on sale for $99), and battery-powered Portal Go ($199). In our reviews, we weren't particularly impressed with the Portals; the Portal Go earned our highest marks for its portability, but the Echo Show 8 and Google Nest Hub are our Editors' Choice picks.

Meta's Facebook jumped into the smart display/speaker market a little late; the Portal was introduced in 2018, four years after the debut of Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo smart speaker and two years after the launch of the Google Home (now Google Nest).

But it came at a time when trust in the social network was at an all-time low thanks in part to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. As we noted in our review of the 2019 Portal, "there is still deep suspicion of a company whose revenue is based on behaviorally targeted advertising and which has done a notoriously poor job of preventing its public News Feed from becoming overrun by false, politically radicalizing content."

The pandemic was a boon for smart displays, as people shifted to video-based get-togethers in quarantine. But it apparently wasn't enough for Portal to compete against Google and Amazon for space in people's living rooms and kitchens. Instead, Meta will reportedly focus on hybrid workers who