With most of us cooped up in our houses due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, you must be spending a ton of time watching Netflix. At least I am. But, binge-watching a TV show by yourself could get monotonous very soon. You could use tools like Netflix Party to chat with friends or family while watching Netflix. Who texts while watching TV shows though?
Well, worry not because I recently stumbled upon the perfect solution to our dilemma. It’s a new Chrome extension called Vemos and it lets you turn your lone Netflix binge sessions into virtual movie nights. Vemos is completely free and it allows you to invite your friends or family to join a video call – that works in the same tab as your favorite streaming service.
Vemos uses WebRTC to offer you a Zoom-like video conferencing feature in an overlay in the same tab as Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, Hulu, and Disney Plus. This means you can now binge Peaky Blinders or Haikyuu with friends. You can talk to them and see all of their reactions in real-time. Sounds fun, right? The extension is very versatile and the video playback is completely synced on all screens. Any viewer can control the playback if they want to take a break and not miss any of the goodness.
If you are interested in watching Netflix or Prime Video together with friends, we have listed the steps you need to follow to set up Vemos and start a video call. Simply follow the steps listed below:
How to Watch Netflix, Prime Video Together
1. Install the Vemos Chrome extension (Free) and navigate to the streaming platform of your choice. I’m using Netflix for this demo.
2. Play the TV series or movie you want to watch together with friends or family. Tap the Vemos icon and hit the ‘Allow Vemos to run on Netflix.com’ button.
Note: The aforementioned is a one-time process that you need to follow for every website that you want to stream together with others.
3. You will now see a ‘Start watching together!’ button on tapping the Vemos icon. Click this button.
4. You should see an overlay over Netflix, with your own video and an invite link in the right pane. You can copy the invite link and share it with your friends.
5. Your friends simply need to follow the same process as above and install the Vemos extension before clicking the invite link and joining a watch party. Voila, that’s it.
The addition of video and audio capabilities to Netflix certainly puts Vemos ahead of its closest competitor, Netflix Party. You can disable video or audio for yourself and friends if that’s something you want. You can also collapse the video pane and watch content full-screen.
Before you run off and install the extension yourself, let me tell you that Vemos was developed by Eoin Nolan, an engineer, who simply wanted to watch Netflix with his girlfriend while traveling abroad. The extension is completely open-source and could be exactly the thing you are looking for this quarantine.
