Plex has confirmed that it will require a Remote Watch Pass or Plex Pass for remote streaming on its TV apps. The change is going into effect for the Roku app first, followed by all other TV apps and third-party clients in 2026.

Earlier this year, Plex increased its pricing for Plex Pass and stopped supporting all options for free remote streaming in the Plex apps, such as adding a custom server connection in the app settings. The company said at the time, "The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience, and as a result, we will no longer offer remote playback as a free feature." That's also when Plex introduced the Remote Watch Pass as a less expensive way to enable remote streaming again.

Plex is now rolling out the remote watch changes to its Roku TV app. If you have Plex Pass, or the owner of the server you're streaming from has Plex Pass, you don't need to do anything. Otherwise, if you are streaming on a different network from the server's home network, you need Plex Pass or Remote Watch Pass.

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[–] dajoho@sh.itjust.works 11 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

I can recommend a local Wireguard server for this. I have one port on my router open for Wireguard and all of my devices can connect to it remotely.

Once connected, they can see all the devices on my local network, including my local jellyfin server. It works pretty painlessly and you don't need to open any jellyfin ports to the world.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 8 points 14 hours ago

That's how it works with Tailscale as well. Tailscale creates Wireguard tunnels underneath between the different devices. There's also an open-source self-hostable Tailscale control plane.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

Sure except for tv boxes.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Enable the Funnel feature on your Tailscale.

[–] kratoz29@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 hour ago

The bandwidth is not enough for big media files, at least that's what I've discovered.

[–] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 hours ago

I don't see why a router couldn't be configured to make that work.

[–] dajoho@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago

Haven't personally the need to connect tv boxes remotely- all of my mobile devices are handheld, so cell phone, laptop, steamdeck etc, all of which have pretty seamless wireguard clients, but I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work with the correct Wireguard client installed on a tv box. The only issue might be really old android versions.