Often when you travel and check into your hotel room, it’s only natural to unwind by connecting your phone to the Wi-Fi, and, via a single tap, stream the latest episode of your favorite Netflix series directly to the room’s TV.
It was a way to avoid remembering your password and manually inputting it onto unknown TVs with the help of the hotel remote.
As of this week, however, consider those days officially over.
Subscribers have Netflix to thank, as the streaming giant removed the ability to cast content from its mobile apps to televisions and other streaming devices, according to Netflix’s updated help page.
The change forces subscribers to ditch their phones as controllers and log in directly through the Netflix app installed on their TV or dongle.
“Netflix no longer supports casting shows from a mobile device to most TVs and TV-streaming devices,” the company’s help page notes. “You’ll need to use the remote that came with your TV or TV-streaming device to navigate Netflix.”
So, why make this move?
It’s seemingly because of a forced migration towards native apps, which offers the streaming giant more control over the user interface, data collection, and ad delivery.
Even though the company hasn’t issued a press release on the matter, according to Fortune, a customer service representative told one Reddit user that the decision was made “to improve the customer experience” and “if the device had its own remote, you can’t cast.”
The new restriction also seems to fall in line with the general strategy of tightening control over how subscribers gain access to the platform, which follows the company’s aggressive crackdown on password sharing between different households.
The swift change for casting rolled out in mid-November before it was confirmed on Monday. The major shift affects most modern hardware, including the Google Chromecast with Google TV and Google TV Streamer.
For travelers though, it’s super inconvenient news as the former method allowed users to keep all their credentials secure on their personal devices while watching content on a much larger screen.
Now, if you have a newer streamer stick — or are using a smart TV for a limited time, like in an Airbnb or hotel room — subscribers must manually enter their email address and password (assuming you remember it) using a physical remote control.
And you can accidentally leave your log-in data on this shared device unless you remember to sign out upon checking out.
There are a few exceptions to the new rule, but even that has its own caveats.
Casting will still work on “legacy” hardware – specifically first, second, and third-generation Chromecasts and Google’s Chromecast Ultra.
That’s because they’re older and lack an on-screen interface or remote control. But this only works if you’re a subscriber on the Standard or Premium tiers. If you have the cheaper, ad-supported tier, which is $7.99 a month, casting is officially disabled across all devices, no matter the age.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.pennlive.com ’
