Today we are pleased to announce the release of new features for BlueJeans Meetings and Events on Portal from Facebook. The combination of the BlueJeans app and Facebook Portal’s touchscreen, smart camera and smart sound capabilities provide users with immersive, simple and distraction-free BlueJeans Meeting and Events experience joining from their Portal devices.

Portal for Facebook is an easy and fun device to connect with friends and family, take online classes or for entertainment. With the onset of remote work in 2020, Facebook and partners like BlueJeans reimagined the Portal to deliver additional benefits for remote workers. Portal provides a convenient, dedicated video device in your home office for productive, engaging meetings, while leaving you free to use your laptop or desktop to make the most out of your time.

With the power of BlueJeans App 1.3, users will be able to experience the full-breadth of BlueJeans Meetings and Events from their Portal. The new app includes:

  • BlueJeans on Portal will now have the same extended video layout (5x5) as Desktop users and view up to 25 video tiles
  • Users can pinch to zoom into content being shared with the touchscreen
  • The "Who's Talking" animation will show which participant is currently speaking
  • Support for Google Calendar in addition to Office 365 Calendars

While a lot of us love showing our personalities by showing our backgrounds at home, for those days when things are a little chaotic, BlueJeans on Portal now also provides the option for background blur.

Company-wide events, townhalls and webinars continue to play a big role in maintaining employee engagement and communication as most employees are still remote. To make attending BlueJeans Events easier, BlueJeans on Portal supports BlueJeans Events with engagement features such as Q/A and Polling. Users can participate in BlueJeans Events from the Portal, and also respond directly to Q/A and Polling from the Portal's touchscreen.

With majority of employees now gearing up for a hybrid work model for the near future – where we spend a part of our work week at home and a part of our week in the office collaborating and meeting with coworkers, plug-and-play, multi-use devices like Portal are becoming more important to enable a flexible system of collaboration. The Portal serves as a second screen next to computers at home, enabling users to be more present during meetings and not get distracted on their computers. Additionally, for organizations trying to equip conference rooms to be more hybrid work-friendly, the Portal can be an easy, fast option to video-enable a small meeting room or huddle space.

The BlueJeans App features three modes that makes the Portal suitable for different spaces -

- Auto Mode: Puts the closest person to the device in the center of the frame

- Desk Mode: Optimized for use when a single person is at a desk

- Meeting Mode: Puts multiple people in the center of the frame

 

To upgrade your Portal to the new App, follow these steps! Learn more about Portal from Facebook with BlueJeans here.