If, like me, you’ve got a student in the home who is about to leave for college or university, you might be wondering what happens with shared family streaming accounts. Will they still be able to use your family Netflix, Apple TV+ or Amazon accounts if they’re living in a different part of the country?
The answer varies from service to service, with each having different rules or account types to accommodate students living away from home.
Here is a service-by-service guide for students (and parents) who want to carry on streaming like they do at home.
Netflix
Until relatively recently, students could use family Netflix accounts even if they were away from home for long periods. Netflix took a relaxed attitude to far-flung students continuing to use parents’ accounts.
Then the Netflix password-sharing clampdown swung into effect and now it’s not so easy for students living on campus to continue using the family account. You may get away with streaming from a different address for a few weeks or even months, but eventually the student is likely to see the dreaded “not in the same home” screen and be barred from streaming.
How to get around this? A VPN might provide a workaround. For example, NordVPN provides a Meshnet facility that allows you to link family devices together. You can use this to link a student’s remote device to one in the family home, making it appear as if the device is still using the family’s home connection. However, there’s no guarantee it will work and the cost of the VPN service will probably outweigh Netflix’s official workaround.
That workaround is “extra member” accounts, where you can add anyone who doesn’t live in the same address as you to your account. These cost $7.99 per month in the U.S. or £4.99 per month in the U.K. That’s considerably cheaper than taking out a new account for the student, although it still grates when they’ve been using your account for free all this time.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon struggles to deal with the concept of adult offspring still living in the family home, let alone out of it.
The Amazon Household sharing system only accommodates up to two adults and four children. Once your children hit the age of 18, they’re stuck in limbo. My eldest daughter, now 20, is still listed as a “child” in our Amazon Household account, even though Amazon knows her date of birth!
If you’re a single-parent family, you may get away with registering the adult child as the second adult on the account and letting them continue to enjoy Prime Video, however it’s intended for people living in the same home and you may find the service is blocked if a student attempts to consistently access Prime Video remotely.
Amazon does, however, have a Prime for Students plan available for 18 to 24-year-olds in the U.S. This includes Prime Video, Music Prime and Prime Gaming among other benefits. You get a six-month free trial of the service if you’re a new member and then it’s $7.49 per month after that.
In the U.K. Prime for Students is limited to 18 to 22-year-olds and you’ll need a university email address to register. Again, there’s a six-month free trial after which it costs £4.49 per month or £47.49 annually.
Apple TV+
Apple, perhaps because it’s still building its streaming business, is the most relaxed of the three when it comes to sharing your account with a student.
First, you’ll need to add your student via Apple’s straightforward Family Sharing system, if you haven’t already done so. This lets you share Apple TV+, Music, News and Arcade accounts with family members, as well iCloud storage and other purchases made on your Apple account.
When it comes to streaming, it seems Apple doesn’t mind if the student is no longer living at home, as long as they remain in the same country as the main account holder. So, as long as your offspring aren’t heading abroad for their education, they should still be able to stream Slow Horses, Pachinko or anything else from the Apple TV+ vaults.
