Plex Home delivers parental controls, better sharing, managed accounts

Plex Home has arrived to deliver new features allowing users to have better control over sharing and their media in a multi-member family household. Users can choose who they want to share their media content with and create separate user profiles for different members of their family in Plex Home. This is enabled as Plex has moved the server management to the web app.

So we set out to make Plex a better place for families with fine-grained access controls by moving all the server management inside the web app, and allowing you to easily specify the exact content ratings accessible by all your friends and family.

Additionally, with more control over sharing, you can share albums or selected songs with specified members.

Another really important part of being in a home with multiple family members is that creating accounts should be really easy, especially for the younger ones in your household, who may not even have an email address of their own yet. So we've added managed users, which are incredibly simple to create, and don't require a unique username, email address, or password.

There's also fast switching between different user accounts and you can set up PINs as well to protect the accounts.

Lastly, Plex is opening up its Plex Pass so everyone in your Plex Home will have access to it, not just the main Plex Pass account holder.

To experience Plex Home, be sure to download the latest version of the Media Server for Windows (opens in new tab). Then, use one of the apps with Plex Home support to stream to your connected TV. Plex will be updating the rest of its apps soon.

Source: Plex (opens in new tab)

Chuong Nguyen

Chuong's passion for gadgets began with the humble PDA. Since then, he has covered a range of consumer and enterprise devices, raning from smartphones to tablets, laptops to desktops and everything in between for publications like Pocketnow, Digital Trends, Wareable, Paste Magazine, and TechRadar in the past before joining the awesome team at Windows Central. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, when not working, he likes exploring the diverse and eclectic food scene, taking short jaunts to wine country, soaking in the sun along California's coast, consuming news, and finding new hiking trails. 

38 Comments
  • 1st
  • Splendid comment. I haven't used the application yet. Just haven't taken the time to download and install the software to my computer. Looks good. Anyone using this yet?
  • Splendid comment, from retarded people. The same for second, third, fourth and every other numbered comments.
  • Plex can't play mkv shit from Xbox.
  • @agrum: Are you referring on Xbox One? I ask because I have the Plex app on my Xbox One and so far I've watched over 20 full 1080p MKV video files from my library perfectly fine. It is awesome.
  • Instead of blaming the app check your network that you are streaming though, most use wireless which if you don't have a top-end router then go with hard wire. If you are looking for a cheap router that can use plex without buffering. ASUS RT-N66U, AC66U, AC68U, AC87U.
  • Well, Lumia selfie got an update last night
  • First of all, I was supposed to get first comment, one that was funny, so: I asked Google now, Cortana, and Siri the same question: "tell me a joke." They all replied "Xbox music".
  • Hahaha :D i dont know You , but Thanks bro ^^ You just made my day *-*
  • Second!
  • 1st reply to second comment!
  • 3rd...
  • Really guys?? Seriously?......aww.. To hell with it.. Fourth! LMAO
  • Chunkylover huh?
  • @aol.com
  • Good. Now bring channels to xbox one and we are done.
  • Awesome! I was just trying to figure out how to control content access, yesterday - I didn't know a new release would be required.
  • Plex rules!!!
  • This is a welcome update! I was searching through all of their help forums trying to figure out how to set up parental controls. I love Plex after about two months if using it. I wish they offered more control over metadata and would allow Xbox users to purchase the app instead of requiring a premium pass, but those are my only major complaints.
  • Anyone using plex? Would you recommend it over XBMC?
  • I haven't used XBMC but I remember one person mentioning Plex is about ease of use while XBMC allows for more customization. I will tell you that I am a Plex pass holder and it makes it so easy to stream my content to my daughter's tablet miles away.
  • I like XBMC but it isn't as smooth or well built as Plex.  XMBC has a crazy interface they really should replace but as an app, XBMC does a good job. Plex simply works and has a very intutive interface to get to almost everything it can do, especially if you are a noob. Now that its on my XBO, I'm living the dream.
  • Plex is winning the media server game as far as I can tell. Syncing is amazing feature, this is the cherry on top.
  • Hope they update the Windows Store apps. Both the Windows phone and Windows apps are missing features! Showing and playing bonus materials from disc is one I miss!
  • Yes, Plex is stepping up for families.  I knew it was a good move to use Plex.
  • Lol I remember when homer said chunkeylover53@aol.com
  • Haha he was talking to a detective or something
  • Plex has far more features than Xbmc. I love Plex
  • How to download file from googledriver from wp divice ????
  • There should be a button on the new mobile site.
  • Plex is great and good to see they are adding some wanted features. I much prefer plex over xbmc for its ease of use and it does seem to stream better. BUT they seriously need to add support for OneDrive as now it supports 10GB files it would make y life complete.
  • Plex if you take the time to configure properly is a marvellous additional to streaming media in your home. I bought a synology NAS server but it just didn't cut the mustard as regards performance and resources. I installed the Plex Server on my home PC (core i5, 16gb memory) using the Synology as mapped NAS. Kids access on their Rokus and smart TVs.
  • Have Plex but still kind of don't get it. The interface is a bit of a pain of you have a ton of episodes of a show for instance...at least by default. I also can't run it from my NAS so having a energy sucking computer running all the time for a pretty interface is hard to justify.
  • I have many episodes missing or not showing up at all. Guess I could Mao them to HOME VIDEOS but would realm like them in TV Shows...
  • Re: gatak0410.1,
    May I ask, how are the episodes, you are missing, supposed to show up. How do you think the download is supposed to work?
  • Wasn't there a Wcentral sweepstakes involving Plex? Where is that?
  • One feature I want for the XBOX ONE app...to view photos with a true photo shuffle...then I can pin XBOX Music and have a music filled, shuffling slide show. Miss that from Windows Media Center...
  • I have a whole house Windows Media Center with a Ceton infinity card to access and automatically record my cable TV content (TV and movies) even the DRM content. Photos and music too. It is accessible from every TV in our home. Does plex do that? I don't want to spend any time downloading or ripping or converting tv shows or movies. I like the idea that PLEX gives remote access outside the house, over the internet. Maybe I could add it to Windows Media Center? Has anyone done this?