Portal in the most recent update removed the manual zoom. Now users on both ends are required to active it for each call.

We purchased two portals so that we could stay in touch with my mother who is in a nursing home. In a setting like that there are always staff walking around, which the camera picks up. Making the experience very very poor without the use of manual zoom feature.

My assumption is that whoever decided this did it for privacy, without considering some of the real life applications of this product.

Folks who are older will have trouble with this. Folks who are in healthcare facilities will have trouble with this.

It can be easily solved by creating a setting where you could always allow the zoom with a specified user. Asking both parties to activate that feature on every call is a colossal oversight and is not user friendly.