Sling TV just launched a “Sling Watch Party” feature in beta, meaning you can now connect with friends and family via video or text chat while you watch live TV together. The streaming service is the latest to offer a “watch party” feature — following others like Amazon Prime and Disney+ — and it’s the only service to offer watch parties for live TV.

Sling Watch Party allows customers to invite up to three guests to share a TV viewing experience. In addition to having the ability to chat with other viewers, Sling Watch Party also gives you full control of your video camera and volume. You can use the feature on live TV or any on-demand programming.

Screenshots of the feature first popped up on the Disney+ subreddit. Disney confirmed to The Verge it’s running a limited test of GroupWatch. There are plans to roll out the option in other regions this fall — just in time for the cold winter months where you probably won’t be hanging out with your friends outdoors.

There are third-party options through which people can host or join watch parties, but it’s good to see streaming platforms making it easier for folks to do so. The Disney+ offering is far more limited in scope than ones on other services. Prime Video allows you to invite up to 100 of your nearest and dearest friends to join a watch party, while Twitch streamers can theoretically have tens of thousands of people watching something with them in their chat.

The Movies Anywhere app is free, but all Watch Together viewers must either purchase the movie or receive a Screen Pass for that title. Screen Pass, which is still in open beta, lets users share movies they’ve purchased with friends and family for limited-time viewing.

Watch Together offers a few advantages over other watch party options. Hulu, for instance, only lets viewers join its watch parties from the web app, and everyone has to be a No Ads subscriber. Watch Together is available on mobile, web and many smart TVs.  While it’s not exactly free, if you combine it with Screen Pass, only one person has to pay for the movie, so it’s one of the more affordable options. Twitch also requires its watch party viewers subscribe to Amazon Prime. Overall, official support for shared viewing is still extremely rare. Netflix hasn’t had official support since its features disappeared from Xbox 360.

To start a Watch Together viewing, search for the title you’d like to watch in Movies Anywhere. From the details page, select the Watch Together button and the “I want to host” button. You’ll then get a 6-character room code and URL to share with your guests.

Amazon’s new Prime Video feature could help you stay connected with friends even while social distancing. If you’re in the US, you can now host and attend a Prime Video Watch Party, a new option for desktop that lets you co-watch with friends and fellow Prime members. As the host, you’ll be in charge of controls, providing all attendees with a cinema-like synchronized viewing experience. And yes, you can choose what to watch from Prime Video’s TV and movie lineup, which currently includes Captain America: The First Avenger and Amazon Originals like Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and The Boys.

The new feature seems to be an expansion of Watch Parties for Twitch, which Amazon launched as a test feature in late 2019, that lets streamers watch videos with their viewers. Like in Twitch’s version, you’ll have access to a chat box with built-in stickers in a Watch Party, so you can communicate with friends. If you’re the host, you’ll be able to generate a link when you start a session and then invite up to 100 people — as long as they’re all Prime Video subscribers or Prime members based in the US, that is.

Twitch first revealed its plans for “Watch Parties” back in October 2019. The test feature would allow streamers to watch Prime Video with their viewers, as long as they were also subscribers. Now, Watch Parties beta is being expanded to all US Twitch partners and will roll out to all US creators in the coming weeks. Twitch says it plans to launch the feature worldwide in the coming months.

This couldn’t come at a more opportune time, since millions of people around the world are currently stuck indoors due to COVID-19 measures, and streamers and influencers are tasked with keeping their audiences occupied. The new beta will also include a picture-by-picture format, so viewers can see and hear how streamers react to every scene.

The company is testing the feature worldwide in Facebook Groups during certain sports events, including UEFA Champions League matches. It’ll eventually spread to “all kinds of live events and cultural moments,” Facebook said, citing award shows and premieres as likely candidates.

Facebook isn’t just catering to TV junkies today — it’s also courting music fans. If you attach a song to your profile, you can give visitors an option to listen to the full song on Spotify (see below). More music partners will be available in the “near future,” according to Facebook, so you might not be out of luck if you or your friends prefer other services.

It may seem unusual for Facebook to enable Watch Party for videos that aren’t even online, but this appears to be more about capturing your attention than making money. If you stay in a Facebook space while you’re watching the big game, you might be more likely to stay on the service for after-match discussions.