Streaming services have grown exponentially since the pandemic started. Part of this success is the growing number of features while the other part pertains to movie releases that would have been in theatres if not for COVID-19. But watching with your friends and family virtually has always been a difficult experience. This is mainly due to service restrictions that are originally in place to prevent piracy. Thankfully, Sling TV has just released a new ‘Watch Party‘ feature that aims to solve exactly this problem. Let’s take a quick look at it.
What is a ‘Watch Party’ on Sling TV?
Watch Party is a feature in Sling TV that allows you to catch up with your friends and family remotely while watching your favorite shows and movies directly through Sling. This eliminates the need for additional third-party video conferencing services that not only were a hassle to set up but also introduced issues like latency and mismatched audio. Thankfully ‘Watch Party’ will help you overcome all these issues while providing a seamless viewing experience for you and your friends remotely.
Sling TV Watch Party Requirements
System Requirements
Watch Party does not require significant processing power which means it can run on virtually any modern machine. All you need is Google Chrome, which will allow you to install a Sling TV extension for Watch Party support. Official guidelines by Sling TV suggest support for only Google Chrome but Microsoft Edge users can also give it a try as it is based on Chromium as well.
Sling Account
Sling TV has introduced Watch Party only for paid subscribers of the streaming service. This means that people you intend to invite to a Watch Party will also need to be subscribed to Sling TV to make the most of this feature. Thankfully, Sling is providing a week-long trial phase within which you can invite guests to your Watch Party as well without having them subscribe to Sling TV. This trail period will however come to an end on 30th September after which you will need to subscribe to Sling TV to get the full benefits of the new Watch Party feature.
Number of Users
Currently, Watch Party on Sling TV only supports 3 additional users apart from the host. Sling TV hasn’t indicated support for additional users in subsequent updates but you can guess that if the feature gains enough popularity then it is only a matter of time.
How to Host a Watch Party
Hosting a watch party in Sling is a pretty simple procedure. If you have watched anything with the new beta update then you might have noticed a new Watch Party option in the information tab for your favorite show. Let’s take a look at how you can make the most of this.
Start by opening Google Chrome on your system and visit this link. You will now be asked to sign in with your Sling TV account.
Once logged in, navigate to the desired channel/on-demand show that you wish to watch with your friends. Once you are on the details page for the show, you will notice a new ‘Create Watch Party’ button. Click on it to get started.
You will now be shown an invite link with the options to either use the mail app or copy the link. Choose your preferred way of sending the invite link to your friends and family.
Once the link has been sent, click on ‘Next’ in the bottom right corner of the window.
You will now be taken to the lobby where you will be able to chat and text with your friends while watching the desired channel/ show. You will be notified once somebody joins in using the invite link.
You should now be able to easily host a Watch Party using your Sling Tv account.
Prominent features of Watch Party in Sling TV
- Video chat
- Text chat
- Individual Audio controls
- Individual Video controls
- Host Controls
- Administrative restrictions
- Live Content access
- On-Demand Content access
We hope this guide helped you get familiar with Sling TVs new Watch Party feature. If you have any questions for us, feel free to reach out using the comments section below.Â
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