Plex has confirmed that it will require a Remote Watch Pass or Plex Pass for remote streaming on its TV apps. The change is going into effect for the Roku app first, followed by all other TV apps and third-party clients in 2026.
Earlier this year, Plex increased its pricing for Plex Pass and stopped supporting all options for free remote streaming in the Plex apps, such as adding a custom server connection in the app settings. The company said at the time, “The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature.” That’s also when Plex introduced the Remote Watch Pass as a less expensive way to enable remote streaming again.
Plex is now rolling out the remote watch changes to its Roku TV app. If you have Plex Pass, or the owner of the server you’re streaming from has Plex Pass, you don’t need to do anything. Otherwise, if you are streaming on a different network from the server’s home network, you need Plex Pass or Remote Watch Pass.
Oh fuck off, dipshits. You chose this route despite the community that built you.
They make more money off of FAST then they do self hosting own media. Of course they are going to care less and less about the self hosters.
If Plex was 100% paid there a would be zero complaints.
I don’t think that’s it.
There were complaints when Netflix started enforcing password sharing rules.
I think the main driver of complaints is “you promised the thing I’m paying for would be X, and now you’re changing the deal.”
And the main answer is “Pray we do not change it any further.”
And as you’re done praying, they change 10 more, because they can.
Which is not what Plex is doing. There’s no change for paid users.
In other news: Plex changed the UI for Roku devices. The community says it’s horrible. They absolutely don’t care, paid or unpaid users.
There were complaints… and then subscription numbers increased.
Overall. They went down in the affected areas.
There was never an explicit deal on providing free shit. Although they seem to be honoring paid stuff. If your account is old enough, content shared with friends can be downloaded even if they don’t have a Plex pass.
Not for users who paid the mobile unlock fee.
What if I’ve already paid the one-time mobile app activation fee?
For users who have already paid a one-time, in-app activation for either our mobile Android or iOS app, an extended trial for the new Remote Watch Pass subscription is available.
(Source: Plex)They soften the landing with the “extended trial”, but anyone who paid the “one-time fee” is finding out what that really meant.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a year from now there’s an announcement for Plex 2.0 and my lifetime account only applies to legacy Plex.
Apparently this extended trial is 3 months. I would have thought that it was just the terminology they needed to use to get it to work with the mobile platforms. This is a really shitty thing to do.
Thought it would have happened by now. Life time doesn’t make sense as there are recurring costs.
Then they shouldn’t have offered it.
What exactly does this mean?
Previously you could pay a one time fee to watch remotely on Android and iOS without having the Plex Pass and now it sounds like they’re rolling this into the Plex Pass and asking users to pay again.
Yeah that sounds fucked if true. I’m asking specifically because people’s experiences will help so much more than search results.
Which part?
Is there a difference between the two?
Yes
That the one-time fee was a lie.
How so
The issue, as always, is that Plex started to put free existing features behind a paywall to squeeze more money out of their client base instead of adding something and charging for it.
VC money came in and now the VC wants to cash in on the investment.
In that case, I think no one would’ve used Plex in the first place. But yeah, I think it should be that way ideally.
Switched to Jellyfin after more than a decade with Plex. Prettey… prettey… pretty good.
Love me some Jellyfin. I was yesterday days old when I finally read some documentation and learned that my metadata issues were because I was using a mixed library type for kids shoes and movies, and that they strongly discourage it because of the unreliable metadata it causes. Split kids movies and shows apart and now that works flawlessly, still, I feel like I’d prefer they could be combined on a single library for a kids’ browsing
Why do you have a library of kiss’s shoes?
Who is kiss?
A band.
No, my dogs give me kiss.
2 double Negronis is why
Why not Emby?
Haven’t tried it out. I installed Jellyfin and have really liked it, don’t see the reason to try something else yet
I can recommend a local Wireguard server for this. I have one port on my router open for Wireguard and all of my devices can connect to it remotely.
Once connected, they can see all the devices on my local network, including my local jellyfin server. It works pretty painlessly and you don’t need to open any jellyfin ports to the world.
That’s how it works with Tailscale as well. Tailscale creates Wireguard tunnels underneath between the different devices. There’s also an open-source self-hostable Tailscale control plane.
Sure except for tv boxes.
Haven’t personally the need to connect tv boxes remotely- all of my mobile devices are handheld, so cell phone, laptop, steamdeck etc, all of which have pretty seamless wireguard clients, but I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t work with the correct Wireguard client installed on a tv box. The only issue might be really old android versions.
I don’t see why a router couldn’t be configured to make that work.
Enable the Funnel feature on your Tailscale.
The bandwidth is not enough for big media files, at least that’s what I’ve discovered.
Same, and I haven’t missed any of the streaming services I used to have. It’s amazing.
Do you remote stream (off your server network)? If so, how’s the experience?
I do. No issues.
Do you reverse proxy, Tailscale, etc to authenticate or circumvent the need for a secure connection? Every time I come close to planning a switch, that part paralyzes me, it feels so unintuitive.
I do use both a reverse proxy and Tailscale. All services are proxied. All services except for Jellyfin are accessed only via Tailscale. Jellyfin is publicly available. I’ve obscured it a bit by setting up long, randomly generated DNS name. The proxy would only forward traffic to Jellyfin if the request comes from that exact DNS name. Bots would have to know this name for the proxy to entertain their attempts at all. Then every user has long, randomly-generated password. I prefer to only use it behind Tailscale but some of my family needs direct access. Also Chromecast.
I get that some users need a DNS name, but for Chromecast (unless you’re talking about the original one that does not actually have apps) you can use Tailscale just like in any android device.
Hm, I thought Chromecast needs HTTPS and internet-visible endpoint.
Do you give friends and family access to your library? If so, how?
