Prime Video tests Watch Party feature in US
July 1, 2020
Amazon Prime Video is beginning to roll out a co-viewing feature to Amazon Prime members in the US.
The ‘Watch Party’ feature, which is included at no extra cost with a Prime membership, allows participants to watch video content together at the same time with the playback synchronised to the host’s account. The host of the co-watching session will be able to start, stop and pause the Watch Party as needed throughout the session, and those changes will also be synced to all participants’ devices instantly.
Each session can support up to 100 participants — as long as those participants also have a Prime membership (or a Prime Video subscription) and are are watching from within the US.
While the video is playing, users can socialise with other participants through a built-in chat feature that supports both text and built-in emojis.
Whilst the new feature is in beta testing, it can currently only be accessed via a desktop browser. Smart TVs, mobile phones, set-top boxes, as well as Amazon’s own line of Fire TV devices are thus far not supported.