Plex says that its updated app experience, which is slowly rolling out to users on select platforms, will not offer Watch Together functionality. However, the browser-based Plex web player will continue supporting Watch Together.

Introduced in 2020, PlexWatch Togetherallows you to host remote viewing parties with friends or family. It automatically syncs the progress of a movie or show across multiple devices, and it ensures that all users can control the shared stream—if one user pauses the video to take a bathroom break, then the video will pause for every viewer in the party.

Most major streaming services implemented a watch party feature in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And nearly all of these services—Disney+,Amazon Prime Video, andNetflix—trashed their watch party functionality over the past year or so. Plex is now joining the pack, citing itsapp overhaulas the reason for Watch Together’s retirement.

To be clear, Watch Together will continue working in the classic Plex app. You may continue using the feature until you migrate to the new Plex app experience (which you should do at some point for software stability and security purposes, even if Plex doesn’t force you to update). Watch Party will also work in the browser-based Plex web player for the foreseeable future.

“It was the year 2020. Life had gotten very different, very fast. Then, at the request of a fan named Joe, Plex Labs quickly put in some long hours creating a way for the world to watch together when circumstances kept us apart … Now, five years later, we are nearing the official release of our new Plex experience that will bring us closer together than ever before … Support for Watch Together will not be available in the new Plex experience for most devices, [but] you can still continue to use the feature in our web app for the foreseeable future.

Watch Together was never a perfect feature. It’s something that was hacked together when social distancing was a harsh necessity. It’s somewhat buggy, and it apparently isn’t popular enough to carry over to the new Plex app (although Plex makes no mention of the feature’s popularity or lack thereof in itsannouncement).

In any case, Watch Together is far from useless. You don’t need to be in an active pandemic to benefit from a shared, synced, remote viewing experience. This is especially true for Plex Pass customers who host their own media server;sharingis at the core of the Plex philosophy.

I think that Watch Together should remain a standard component of Plex, even if it’s underutilized. If you hop on over to thePlex subreddit, you’ll find that a lot of people share my opinion. The fact that Watch Together is being retired as Pleximplements new social media functionalityis also kinda weird—if there’s one feature that could encourage people to write reviews or snoop through other people’s profiles, it’s Watch Together.

Those who want to continue using Watch Together may do so through the Plex web player in a desktop browser. In other words, you’re able to finagle a shared, synced viewing experience by encouraging your friends to plug their laptop into their TV via HDMI cable. Alternatively, you and your friends can manually line up a video stream by timestamp (far from ideal, I know).

I should also point out that tools likeDizqueTVandErsatzTVcan create virtual live television channels in Plex by emulating anOTA TV receiver. Live channels can provide a shared, synced viewing experience, but they are by no means a direct replacement for Watch Together. They also take a bit of effort to set up and may chew through some of your media server’s resources.

Those who are disappointed by Watch Together’s removal should share their opinion with Plex. You can give the company feedbackvia emailor through most major social media channels.