If nothing else, the seemingly endless parade of bad publicity has had the knock-on effect of making the company particularly proactive about privacy in a way the competition lacks. One of my main complaints about Google’s Nest Hub Max is the lack of a physical camera shutter. The original Portal, meanwhile, came with a small piece of plastic that clipped over the camera.
The timing of the original Portal’s launch was less than ideal. The company reportedly pushed things back as the Cambridge Analytica scandal hit full broil, only to be hit with another data breach disclosure. If there’s a lesson to be learned with this year’s sequel, it’s that there may just not be a good time for the company to release a camera-mounted piece of home hardware.
