[Update2] Updating to a 5 star rating - not only has the remote functionality been restored but also the errors went away! :) Thanks Portal team for fixing the issue as promised. [Update1] Contrary to the developer response, looks like the latest app update removed the remote functionality altogether from Portal app. It essentially makes the Portal TV useless until I’m able to fix / replace the physical remote which hasn’t been working for quite sometime now. [Original Review] I keep getting ‘something went wrong error’ for pretty much every click in the remote that’s embedded in the app. The pop up has to be manually dismissed by clicking ‘Ok’ before you can do another click on the remote. It is annoying to say the least. Happy to provide screenshots to help resolve the issue.
I bought a portal to have near my Mom, and Pops! This way I can see every day! My Mom is 93 and Pops is 98! What a joy to talk to them every single day! The only thing I wish her Portal had, was a way to attract headphones or a way to increase the volume Probably twice as loud! They both have very nice and functional hearing aids, but they are from the time that, nice things are saved for special occasions only! Because they live far up a mountain, someone that comes to visit, that is not company is a special event, so they wear their hearing aids! But this is not so for family! They are saved to wear to town for a doctor’s appointment! I do agree that hearing aids are important for a Doctor’s appointment, but they should be asking the doctor for his notes as well, because even with their hearing aids, they don’t always capture all that the doctors are saying! I apologize for going on to write so much about the importance of hearing well, but it is something that I battle with every day!
I love so much about having a Portal at my parents home I can upload photos to it from anywhere and they can watch them scroll through, they can use it just as an Alexa and ask questions and family members can call in through messenger and video chat with them as well. Many more great features as well, but uploading pictures that scroll through keeps them up to date with kids, grands and great grands all of which helps with memory.
My 88 year old mother in law calls Portal “her joy.” She refused any phone technology but the Portal has captured her heart. Now during quarantine it is even more valuable. Photos from family and video chats keep her in touch with loved ones around the world. Easy for her to use. Easy for family to support. Check in on her health and state of mind. Share family events live. All She has to do is push a button to answer calls. Photos show up with no effort on her part. It is a wonderful thing.
My husband and I Love this Portal, we have some very special memories on here, and it takes you back to those memories each day. The one thing that could be improved is to allow you to connect to people who are not on Facebook. But, we have managed to make it work by them sending pictures to me and I can save them To my camera roll and from there put them into the portal. Just wish there was another way.
Update 1: It was really annoying to not have the remote functionally work. Even though FB took long, they have fixed it. Had to uninstall and reinstall the app to get the remote functionally to work again. Old review: I can’t believe that a company the size of FB can provide an app half baked. When using the remote feature for my FB Portal TV I keep getting an error ‘something went wrong’. I have to dismiss it for every click. FB please fix this ASAP!!!
You can only update 30 photos at a time. Uploading directly from my iPhone Photo app or Google Photos app and sharing it to the portal app never works. It freezes when it’s uploading photos once I choose an album... even if it’s just one photo I’m trying to upload. (I’ve tried on multiple devices) The reason I’m trying to upload directly from my iPhone Photos app or Google Photos is because the Portal app takes forever to scroll through my photos even if I’m only going back a few months. If they can get this function fixed I will update my rating to a 4 or 5. Otherwise it’s way to tedious to upload photos.
I love everything about it. I bought one for my mom too .Use it almost every day to video chat with her in Europe. I love how it follows the person as she moves around, it focuses on her. Another great feature is the showing of pictures. I uploaded more than 150 pictures and my family in my house and my mother in Europe can enjoy them at the same time. I think this device deserves a better recognition.
My mom is currently living in an assisted living facility during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has very limited visitation opportunities. She has dementia and cannot operate a smart phone or tablet as the touch screens are confusing to her. With the portal device we can initiate video calls without her having touch the device. She just has to be cued to say “hey portal call.....”. It has been a blessing to her and has improved our awareness of her needs remotely. We just set it up facing her recliner. Great product.
We have a big family and recently lost our loving mother who was married to our dad for 70 years. I bought one of these for my dad and it’s been a life saver for him to communicate with the family as some of us live far away. He loves having the pictures on it also and I add different ones from time to time to entertain him.
I love the portal. I use it in a group video chat setting daily. My only issue is every time the “transfer to portal” option is used, it calls every person who had joined that “room” since it opened. It also creates 1, sometimes 2, new random messenger groups with all the members in it. It’s extremely annoying to have to leave 20+ groups a day. I report the issue but nothing has changed.
Initially this worked fine but only 50 at a time. No way to go directly to the month or year, you have to scroll and scroll until you find the pics you want. All of a sudden it stop working. There is supposedly no picture limit but I am no longer able to add any more pictures. Tried deleting and reinstalling the app. Tried resetting my portal, tried creating a new album just in case there was a picture limit for albums. NONE of this worked. This was a gift so that I could keep in contact with my family. Very frustrated with this!
The Portal has a better picture and more consistent audio than any tablet, computer or phone we have, making it nearly perfect for videoconferencing. If Meta builds in support for full Zoom functionality, provides a jack for earbuds or wired headphones, and maybe a usb - it would be perfect. Even without, it’s a great device.
The Portal has been a life saver as my family has been able to stay safely in contact with my Mom during the pandemic. We use it nearly every day and do a group chat once a week. And it’s been so easy to use. Keep adding features! I’d love a way to remotely see my mom’s app choices so I can help her set up the apps like Netflix and Zoom. Right now, I can’t help her remotely.
Grand Daughters call us twice weekly. Son in Washington DC - we visit weekly. Portal has a crystal clear picture and great sound. No delay in transmission of communication. PLUS we can add our photos as a slide show that we enjoy through the day. Wonderful tool. Love it. Harvey of Iowa. Best tool EVER for showing off pic of grand daughters. Easy to use and delivers great compliments from visitors. The BEST !
I love that I can display photos to my portal (a digital picture frame). Everyone that visits my home also enjoys seeing those that are most important in my life and sharing in the memories we’ve made together.
Great tool for the house for video calls to family and friends, Alexa built in also is a plus. Just needs a “drop in” option on the app so that you can view your home when away and not having to have someone there to answer. Alexa echo has this capability so I don’t see why this couldn’t be included in a future update.
I used to be able to call my kitchen portal from my iPhone. However when I use the app and click on kitchen portal, it just goes to messenger if I wanted to message someone. A few weeks ago it use to work great. I used this as an in house intercom to talk to my other family members. Now this function doesn’t work. Please bring it back so I can call other portals in my house.
1. Be able to move small PIP screen to a different corner, and… 2. Be able to control zoom and pan manually as an option. Otherwise this is a great product and with 150 up and down speeds it solid latency. Sound quality still needs a little improvement but very acceptable as is.
This app used to be great, enabling me to upload pictures directly from my Shared Library photos. However now with this latest update I’m unable to upload photos directly from my iPhone’s Photo app. Now I have to sign onto Portal and manually select photos I’ve saved directly on my iPhone (instead of Shared Library). Can this bug be fixed??
There is no iPad app. It would be nice if I could upload pictures to my parents portals directly, sharing an album with them and ask them to download the app and enable the shared album is a bit much. Also, it would be nice if I get a warning about uploading duplicate files. Since the upload limit is so low, its hard to remember if I’ve uploaded that picture or not.
Portal is a great way to start your day and your family journey and also a great place to keep all your memories To my friends and colleagues who are still not sure about portal is a wonderful place to start your day
For a year only my 50 most recent photos have been rotated on my display, disappointing. The point is to take the place of a wall of pictures. Just this week it started bringing back memories and older photos. If this continues I will revisit my review. Was something changed by the development team?
The ONLY thing I can do on the Facebook Portal App is add pictures … there are NO other options … and when I added the pictures, they didn’t show … so I signed out & restarted … I can’t get back in … it wants me to choose my contacts AGAIN … but the only 2 people I need to add, aren’t in my list anymore … EVERYTHING is screwed up now … since I installed the app‼️
Every time I try to use this app to choose photos, it kicks me out. Also, it doesn’t even matter which photos you choose because it continually displays the same random 20 photos anyway. I’ve selected hundreds of photos and I see the same ones over and over. This app and the portal itself are terrible.
I sit watching tv, reading visiting and my eye goes by Portal with all the love memories I save with family and friends. Nothing loud but wonderful pictures changing and bringing me happiness
My mom is 94, not only does this keep pictures for her, but we can call her and she can see us face to face. With Covid it has let her feel connected with family!
Calling Portal from iPhone Portal App Doesn’t Work
Despite the app description, the only thing the app will let you do is load photos to the Portal device. There is no functionality to call the Portal device from your phone or perform a drop-in. This significantly limits the usefulness of the device.
As a companion for a device that has a WhatsApp only login, this app should also have one, to let users manually add photos to their Portal. It’s silly that FaceBook is required to add photos from one’s own phone. But the Portal is great! So I hope WhatsApp login can be added to this app.
I love this portal for my father that’s a senior. The sound is great. The ease of use is spectacular. The app helps me upload pictures and make him see beautiful memories.
I set my photos to cycle through display as screen saver when not in use. I have already been 50 images but only cycles through one picture or a few pictures. Some problem. It is disappointing that a simple screen saver cannot be implemented by mighty meta/FB
We love the portal for regular visits with elderly parent in a residential facility. Favorite part is casting photos to the screen during the calls. Suddenly the app has stopped casting function. Message suggests that app needs to be updated but no update is feasible on the app. 🤨
I downloaded this app because the remote to my portal stopped working and this was my only option to be able to use my portal. The remote on the app doesn’t work either and since this has been discontinued it unfortunately means that my portal is a dud.
This App shuts down as soon as I click on it. We loved using our portal to video chat with our grandbaby but can’t seem to do much of anything else with it. Meta needs to make this right! What a waste of money! It only worked right a couple months after we purchased it. 😡
Pretty much just a photo sharing app. Would have liked to see a full remote function similar to the Roku app but it’s clear the Facebook developers rushed the release even though this would make inputting names and search terms much easier
When I press ‘Create Album’ I am brought to the next window to name it, I do so and click ‘Done’ and I just get taken back to the ‘Photos’ screen and no album is present. There’s no way for me to get my photos on the device outside of Facebook. I’ve tried reinstalling no avail. Using Latest iOS and iPhone 11.
The app remote is really inconsistent. It works occasionally but most of the time it’s “something went wrong - check your network connection”. I’ve done everything to troubleshoot it.
The Portal app lets you display your favorite photos, create and share albums with loved ones and make calls directly to Portal, all right from your phone. CALL HOME FROM YOUR PHONE When you're away from home, you can use the Portal app to call your Portal and talk to members of your household.
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