How to watch Netflix with your friends remotely

Remember the times when you’d go to the theatres with your friends or have a sleepover at a friend’s house and enjoy a movie marathon on Netflix? Sadly, the pandemic made it impossible for us to physically enjoy movies together. But that doesn’t mean watching movies together isn’t possible. Here’s how you can watch Netflix with your friends without ever having to take the risk of going out during the pandemic. 

Teleparty

Originally known as Netflix party, this chrome extension was the first application to make it possible for people to watch a movie together in-sync. How does it work? It’s simple. 

Both you and your friends should have individual Netflix accounts to log in with. When you’re all logged in, one person can start a film, click on the Netflix Party logo in your extension bar to create a party, and send the link to everyone. When you get the link, open the movie and then click on the Netflix Party logo once again. In less than a minute, you are synced in with your friends, ready to watch a movie together. 

This extension extended to connect people over more streaming services, changing its name to Teleparty. The logo has now changed to a ‘T’ and allows you to watch movies with your friends over Netflix, Disney, Hulu, and HBO. Over 10 million people use this app to watch movies with friends and family as it’s free to use and is super easy to set up. 

To download Teleparty, you can either go up on the Chrome Webstore and search for it with the help of the search bar or visit their website, which will direct you to the extension store itself. This extension not only works on Chrome but any browsing application, including Microsoft Edge, Opera, and Mozilla Firefox. 

Watch2Gether

Watch2Gether started off as a player for a selected number of apps that include YouTube, Soundcloud, Vimeo, and Twitch. This application has a player of its own and connects friends who wish to watch content from these platforms together. 

As you would have noticed, this application doesn’t sync video playback for paid applications like Netflix and Disney +. However, the application did find a way to make it possible for people to watch Netflix together. Here’s how it works.

First, you log in to your Netflix accounts and pick the movie of your choice. Then one person from your group must add it to a window in your private room that’s specifically made for Netflix. 

Unlike Teleparty, however, the video playback can only be controlled by the person who started the private room. So, pick the person who won’t sleep during the movie to be the host. This application comes as a chrome extension that you can download from Watch2Gether’s website. 

Rave

Unlike the others on this list, Rave is not a desktop application and is only currently available for smartphones. However, Rave has a ton of cool features to use. In Rave, one person creates a room, which can either be private or public. If you just want it to be you and your friends in a group, change the room to private. After that, you can listen to music and watch videos together. 

Rave allows its users to listen to Spotify, browse the internet and watch movies in synced video playback from Netflix, Disney +, YouTube, Vimeo, and Prime Video. All you have to do is create a room and invite your friends to it. You will have to log in to your Netflix account while accessing Rave’s browser. 

Moreover, the room also has a voting feature to allow the room members to vote on what plays next. If you pick a movie, everyone must vote on it for it to start. Or you could change the settings and give playback privileges to one person. 

TwoSeven

TwoSeven is yet another free app, but quite different from other applications on this list. This application is one of the most reliable ways to watch Netflix with your friends and offers some premium features for its paid Patreon users. It has five different monthly packages, each with its own premium benefits. 

The differentiating factor about TwoSeven is its video calling feature. Unlike Teleparty, which only offers a text-based communication format during synced video playback, TwoSeven allows its users to switch on their webcam so that friends can see each other’s faces while watching a film. This allows for a much more intimate experience for friends and family who are far away from each other. 

As you watch your movie, you can also see your friends and family in real-time and it’s perhaps the closest people can come during a pandemic. While it’s not clear how long this app will be free, it’s certainly something you should explore with your friends. 

Conclusion

The internet has made it possible for people to stay connected, even during a pandemic. And with the pandemic keeping people inside their homes for more than a year, applications like these have kept developing to make people feel closer than they were the previous day.