why is there no response from FB on when auto answer feature will be available? At least provide some sort of update so that people can decide whether they should wait or go for another product.

I need drop in because my son is doing homeschooling through his private school online. That way I can drop in on him to see him and him see me and help him without ringing and interrupting his class on zoom. Because I do not sit there with him the whole time. I have Alexa echos all through my house but we only have the portal in the office where he does School! Please enable the option for drop in on portal!

Auto answer for my elderly & disabled mother-in-law please!

has anyone come up with a work around to auto answer ? Thinking of using a echo spot to drop in and tell portal to call auto answer would be better But alternatives ?

Agree I need this feature for my family member with Dementia. Please add this feature !! Please

I really considered the amazon version just because of the drop in feature. my 90+ year old mother in law lives alone. drop in would let us check on her.

Alexa drop in would be so helpful in checking in with my elderly father who has dementia. Thanks.

Auto answer is a must for portal . Parent in nursing home and she can no longer answer herself. We cannot get in nursing home. A must have feature

I can't believe that auto answer is not available on this portal. Please add this option as soon as possible.

auto answer is needed now for the elderly

Please provide an auto answer feature. I purchased the Portal tablet to communicate with my mom who's in a long term care home, which presently doesn't allow any visitors in order to protect the residence from Covid-19. She is a frail 90 year old and suffers from dementia with no experience on any modern electronics. I can't emphasize enough how beneficial this feature would be for families in similar circumstances during this horrible pandemic. It's been over a month since my mom has seen my face. What a difference it would make to her mental health. Please consider adding this option as soon as possible.

"Auto answer" option should be a priority with FB portal. Especially now!! With the elderly not able to activate answer and needing to see family faces!!

Hello, please add auto-answer functionality so that I can call my grand parents who suffer from dementia and who cannot answer themselves. Also, once I hang-up from my call with them, please make it such that the Portal TV of my grand-parents sets automatically their TV back onto the source/TV channel they were watching prior to my call.
Thank you!
Laurent

This really is a vital need for many people with elderly relatives. I have an Echo Show so I can drop in on my father to check on his well-being - as a stroke patient, he cannot always remember how to answer the Portal. I would like to replace his Show with a Portal so he can interact with other family members who have a Portal, but definitely would need the option to set his Portal to auto-answer / use drop-in feature.

Don't Facebook want to make money with Portal??? Just enable Auto-Answer....now!

This is getting beyond the point of frustration. Before I purchased 4 of the 10" Portals and 1 TV Portal, I already owned 4 Echo Shows. My wife has dementia and Alzheimer. She finds it difficult to use a phone and it is now difficult for her to give the Portal Wake Word to make or answer calls.

I had purchased the Portal because I wanted her to be able to connect to a number of her friends and the Portal is easier to create a call list of people than the Echo.

In January my wife was in the hospital and she had a problem using the nurse's call button. So I brought in one of our Echo Shows and set it on a shelve pointing at her bed. When I wanted to check up on her all I had to do was tell one of my Echo's at home to drop in on the one in the hospital.

The Echo also has another very good feature. It is an intercom. Just say, "Alexa Broadcast" and Alexa will ask you what your announcement is. Say something and it is transmitted to all devices that contain an Alexa.

I told my wife that if she was unable to call for a nurse, she should use the "Broadcast" feature, which she learned a while back and can say. Then I would get the call. Even if she could not leave a message, I would know it was her calling and I could drop in on her and ask her what she needed. If it required a nurse, I then called the hospital and asked for the nursing station on her floor. I told the person who answered that my wife needed her.

I'm referencing this Echo feature because the drop in feature should be added to the Portal. The Portal has a number of features that that the Echo lacks. But if Facebook can't get it through their head that this one simple "drop in" feature would give the Portal a reason to buy over the Echo, then they are missing out on sales that could put them at the top of the "voice activated devices" or whatever the proper name is for these type of devices.

When people ask me which device to buy, I find out their needs and if there is any kind of speaking issue with the person using the device I'll recommend the Echo just because of the DROP IN feature.

When or if Facebook ever gets around to adding this feature I would probably recommend the Portal the majority of times.

so I actually cannot imagine so many people have the same use case as me, but essentially we all have the same grandmas who suffer from dementia and is in need of this.
I am at the consideration stage of getting the portal, and that's how I arrived at this uservoice request!
I don't think I'll proceed until this feature is there, and if it's gonna be a few months more at least I'll probably consider other options for now. (I wasn't aware of echo as an alternative until I read the description of this post - echos got video as well?)

You are missing a huge market for this product by not having a drop in feature. Our father is in a memory care facility under quarantine. Can’t go visit him. We were talking about getting a portal for him but he would not be able to operate. If we could just “show up” on the screen he would definitely talk to us. Tape a new commercial with children “dropping in” to their parents quarantined nursing home - you would sell a boatload.

Has this still not been enabled? Very important - must-have on Portal TV, especially during this pandemic!

Agree - critical for the elderly!