The removal of ambient mode video playback is at least the third significant feature Facebook has removed without explanation since my family’s owned four Portals – $600+ worth – in the past two and a half years.

It’s unacceptable for Facebook to be doing this repeatedly, as it demonstrates a lack of commitment and respect to its paid customers (vs. free/ad supported), and some wrongheaded notion that lesser used features of hardware products can or should be removed simply because that can be done through online firmware updates.

As consumers, we select hardware products that suit our needs and lifestyles based on their capabilities at the time of purchase, and our rightful expectation is for all those features to continue working for the device’s useful life. When we buy a new car, the FM radio doesn’t just disappear after six months, and then cruise control in a year, and the glove compartment a few months later, while the automaker justifies those removals by pointing out the car still has four wheels and performs its primary job of transportation.

Facebook’s most upsetting surprise Portal feature removal was eliminating ambient mode display of tagged photos of selected Facebook friends, a huge let down for all of us who’d purchased Portal for our senior parents and grandparents to enjoy new and past photos of their children, grandchildren, and relatives automatically displayed on their countertops. In our family, we expressly purchased our fourth Portal earlier this year for our parent’s enjoyment, only to be dismayed in learning it was no longer possible, and that purchase turned out to be a waste of time and money.

And going back to late 2019, Facebook’s removal of the ability to transfer video calls between Portal and mobile or desktop Messenger clients was also disappointing, as we’d come to rely on that for switching to Portal from an active mobile call when we arrived home, or from Portal to mobile to continue talking while moving about the house. Now, we’re stuck on whichever device we placed or answered the call on, unless we hang up and start over from the other device.

I truly cannot understand why the Facebook Portal product team decides to remove original, working features that made Portal uniquely enjoyable and useful for extended families, and set it apart from Echo and Google Nest smart displays. And while those abilities were being removed, there’ve been few meaningful new features or apps added. (Notably I’ve been waiting two+ years for Google Assistant integration, so I can eliminate the Lenovo smart display in my kitchen that I use for voice-based home control, information, reminders, and recipes.)

Facebook, please figure out ASAP that Portal owners are your customers paying hundreds of dollars for hardware products with your brand on it, and using them daily and prominently in our homes, buying and recommending them for our friends and families, etc.

Portal owners reflect your most dedicated FB users, beyond the free/ad supported public masses for whom you're constantly changing and evolving features and experience to maximize revenue and usage hours. You need to apply a different bar on your feature and user experience changes, than you do with general Facebook functionality. With Portal, you need to think more like Apple and Amazon in that respect.

I suspect all of us Portal owners would much prefer having Portal-like capabilities in smart displays from our mobile or home ecosystem vendors. The Facebook Portal is a strange one-off, that we embraced for its uniqueness. But you've been slowly degrading that uniqueness, to the point that what Portal made possible for us is no longer there, or preferable to what's offered on other smart displays.