Meta will stop making Portal for customers

Key takeaways: 

• The video chat lineup will concentrate on business use cases now.
• The Portal line debuted in 2018 with two displays represented as reliable video calling stations.

Meta intends to stop making customer versions of its Portal video calling hardware and instead shift the product line to concentrate on use cases for businesses, like conference calls.

The change in plan, first reported by The Information and proved to The Verge by a source familiar with the matter, comes as Meta reassesses its ambitious hardware plans against investor concerns regarding the billions of dollars it's spending on projects that have yet to pay off financially. A representative for Meta refused to comment.

The Portal line debuted in 2018 with two displays meant as reliable video calling stations. They also helped apps for activities like listening to music on Spotify and streaming videos on the Food Network. 

But the displays had restricted functionality, and their relationship to Facebook — dealing with the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica disgrace — didn't offer a lot of confidence as to the safety of inviting a connected camera into your house.