We loved the idea of the Portal, and purchased units for each set of grandparents last Christmas. We've been enjoying them and using them extensively over the last year. However, the recent removal of the spotlight and manual mode controls has me starting to regret the decision.

Spotlight mode was a major differentiating feature for me in choosing the Portal over its competition. We used spotlight mode during nearly every call. It was perfect for the grandparents to zoom in on the grandkids, or to talk to one person while others are in the room. The replacement self-view spotlight is nearly pointless, as the babies aren't going to spotlight themselves.

Manual mode was also very useful, especially when talking to a room full of people. Now the face tracking algorithm is constantly picking up and losing people, zooming in and out over and over again. Sometimes it will pick a random person and zoom way in on them to the exclusion of everyone else. Very annoying, especially with no way to stop it now.

When spotlight and manual mode stopped working, I assumed my Portal was broken, and contacted support. I was shocked when the agent informed me that this was an "update". Major features removed in an update without so much as a warning or a notification? Very disappointing. Even the FAQ page the support agent pointed me to didn't acknowledge that there had been a change, just described how the self-view camera controls work now.

We were planning to upgrade our Portals this year, but not anymore.