Ok, having done my duty with regard to the boy's battery, I decided to install and set up the Portal device I've been talking about above. Physically pretty easy to do, I've got it sitting on the top edge of the TV, you hardly notice it's there. Then HDMI lead to the TV and power adaptor plugged into the wall. Mind you it's all getting a bit "silly" behind my Telly these days with nine power connections (4 plug type transformers and 5 three pin plugs) All powering electronics so still nowhere near max load permissible at the wall socket. With many more Data type cables - HDMI and Ethernet mainly but also the speaker cabling - adding to the confusion.
Then the big moment, select the correct HDMI link on the TV and switch on the Portal power supply. It all fires off and leads you by the nose, on screen, through connecting wirelessly to the router and then "syncing" (I think that's the word?) to my wife's facebook messenger account - I don't do facebook. We are old and not very "tech savvy" but we only had one wee problem with the syncing and, after a few moment's thought we realized what was needed.
We've just fired the whole thing up and had a half hour chatting to my daughter her husband and the grandchildren down in Wiltshire. I was far from convinced we needed this device when my daughter first suggested it, but, as they bought it and made us a present of it I could hardly refuse. I'm completely converted. It's absolutely b***dy wonderful! We have a moderately big TV, 43" screen, and it's just exactly as if they are sitting in the room with us. The camera at each end is a "clever" camera and automatically (I think using facial recognition softeware) optimize the picture focusing in on my daughter and her husband to begin with and widening the field of view when the grandchildren came into the room. It also tracks people when they move so they don't go out of shot. Sound too is excellent, playing through the TV speakers, with none of the dodgy connecting you get on Skype. I suspect I can probably route it through my big AV Amp if I wanted but there's no need as the TV speakers do a good enough job with speech. In fact you can't compare either picture or sound to Skype at all, it's completely in another league! What an absolutely wonderful way to keep in touch during this lockdown rubbish!
Only found one "glitch" so far. If you use it's own wee, very neat, remote controller to tell it to turn off (sleep) it makes the TV go to sleep too! this is a little annoying but you can also tell it (the Portal) to stand by with mic and camera switched off by manually pressing a wee button on it's side- in this mode you can reawaken it very quickly and I think it also connects and alerts you when an incoming signal is detected so probably the way to go anyway? I would guess it's probably pulling a bit more current in this mode though? Just occurred to me that if I switch the HDMI input to the TV (connect to the Sat box) before telling the Portal to "sleep" that may stop any command from the Portal from shutting down the TV? Must give that a try.
So, if you like Skypeing - or Facetiming - your family and friends I can really, REALLY, recommend you to take a close look at this Portal device. They don't have to have one and can still participate on a mobile or other device - of course they won't get the benefit of the immersive experience the Portal gives.
