Here’s how the Add a Home feature will work.
Netflix Is Introducing Add a Home
Netflix is launching a new feature called Add a Home. The new feature is meant to help Netflix enforce its single household policy.
Add a Home is an alternative to Add an Extra Member, which the streaming company introduced in several Latin American countries in early 2022. Both features are targeted at helping Netflix crack down on password sharing. Starting in August 2022, the feature will go live in Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
How Netflix’s Add a Home Feature Works
According to its policy, Netflix allows you to share your account within a single household. Enforcing this rule has been tough, but Add a Home is meant to help the company. To detect your primary home, Netflix uses different factors such as your IP address, device ID, and account activity.
Add a Home comes into play if you’d like to use your account in more than one home (physical location). According to Netflix, you will be prompted to add an extra home if you sign in to your account on another TV or TV-connected device for an extra $2.99 per home.
If you are traveling, Netflix will allow you to stream on a new TV without adding it as an extra home for a limited time of up to two weeks, after which the company will block the TV. The catch? You must not have used your account in that location previously. A Netflix support page says the two weeks respite is only allowed once per location per year. You can still watch on your mobile devices, like your mobile phone or laptop, since these restrictions do not apply.
The number of homes you can add to your account depends on your Netflix subscription plan. The basic plan only allows a single addition, while the Standard and Premium plans allow up to two and three extra homes, respectively. And if you travel often, you’ll be glad to know that you can change your primary home via Settings. The only caveat is Netflix has limited the number of times you can do so to three times every six months.
And if you purchase an extra home and decide to changeyour mind later, Netflix will provide an option to Stop Paying for additional homes. All devices in that home will be signed out when the current billing cycle ends, and you will retain the standard Netflix subscription charge, depending on your plan.
Why Netflix Is Launching Add a Home
The main motive behind the new feature is cracking down on password sharing, one of the company’s current biggest problems. In a letter to its shareholders in April 2022, Netflix estimated that passwords are being shared with over 100 million additional households.
During the first quarter of 2022, Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers, followed by nearly 1 million in the second quarter.
In a Netflix announcement, Chengyi Long, Director of Product Innovation, says, “today’s widespread account sharing between households undermines our long-term ability to invest in and improve our service.”
Netflix Wants to End Password Sharing
Now more than ever, Netflix is serious about cracking down on password sharing. It’s, however, not yet clear when the company will roll out the new feature worldwide, and the good news is the company is still gauging what works best before global rollouts.
But, if you share someone’s credentials, don’t panic; you might be relieved to hear that the company is also working on a cheaper plan to launch in early 2023 as long as you can put up with ads.
