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.
Switched my users to Jellyfin this spring when Plex first announced this move, pretty seamless transition.
I actually prefer Jellyfin and it’s UI compared to the new one Plex rolled out on Roku, what a mess that is to navigate now.
I haven’t looked in awhile, how was the process of migrating watch history or did you not bother?
I only had a few users and a couple of TBs so I did it manually, only took an hour or so but there are ways to automate it.
Here is one I was looking at https://github.com/wilmardo/migrate-plex-to-jellyfin
Didn’t end up using it as I had an issue where I lost all my watch history.
You probably could do it with trakt.
The plugin supports syncing watched history.
But you’d need to do it for every user individually.
(Not tested. But at the time had issues with weird watch status in my jellyfin and trakt seemed to be the reason)