![]() ![]() Household Mode limits who can call and who you can call while the Portal is in a common area. However, you can disable it while you’re in Household Mode. It’s not possible to delete or fully disable the Watch app on the Portal. My joy - my child having a meaningful connection with faraway grandparents - was now my nightmare: my child having unfettered access to garbage video programming I couldn't control.įacebook Watch video content exists in two separate places in the Portal: as a stand-alone app and as a feature within a video call. Somehow, my kid had managed to find and play a clip of Big Ed from 90 Day Fiancé. Later, while he was having a video chat with another 5-year-old friend, I heard the unmistakable sound of reality TV on the Portal. I turned it off and told him that videos were off-limits. It’s not explicitly harmful, but it’s just cloying enough that we’d rather he didn’t watch it. This kind of low-quality content is rampant on Watch and YouTube Kids and is banned in our home. Before I knew it, he was watching some garbage video from “5 Minute DIY Hacks” about kids playing with fidget toys. But left to his own devices, my son tapped into it.īig mistake. When I’ve used the Portal TV, this was never an issue I controlled the remote. Since I have no interest at all in cowatching Facebook Watch videos with my own friends, I’d left this feature unexplored. I was ready to sing the praises and tell you it was absolutely worth $199.ĭuring the call with Grandma, my kid found Portal Go’s Watch Together function, which allows you to watch select video content (largely from Facebook) with friends. The Portal Go seemed to be a total game changer - a kid-to-grandparent communicator that gives kids some ownership of the device and allows them to be kids while using it (this is the first Portal device that doesn’t need to be plugged into an outlet). But the sound quality on the speaker is decent for music, the 10-inch screen is a good size, and at three pounds it's hefty but not too much for a kid to carry. ![]() This means you can’t leave it to charge on its side or even on a soft surface like a couch. But the Portal Go was perfect: small enough to carry around, easily placed on the floor or a couch thanks to its triangle shape, and featuring a wide-angle camera broad enough to capture a cartwheel.įacebook says the battery can handle five hours of video calling I didn’t attempt that much, but my one complaint is the charger, which rests underneath the device instead of plugging in. Sit him down at a computer and he’ll inevitably wander away. Video calls from my phone always seem to end up with my son resting it on the floor and the other person staring up at the ceiling. Small children are not great at video chatting. It was by far the best video chatting experience I’ve seen him have. Later, I found it resting on a pillow as he showed off various Hot Wheels. He put it on the floor to demonstrate a cartwheel. He carried it from room to room, excitedly chatting away. He's spent a lot of time chatting with his grandmother on Portal TV, and he was delighted that this much smaller version was so portable. My 5-year-old had only been using Facebook's new Portal Go for 15 minutes, and already he looked like he was starring in an ad for it. ![]()
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