A Streaming Party App with Great potential
Rabbit - Watch Together started out as a desktop-only application designed to bring friends and families together in spite of the physical distance between them. The desktop software was then followed up with an app that quickly gained popularity, but was acquired by Kast in 2019.
The app now exists as Kast - Watch Together, but the core ideas remain unchanged. We’ve had the pleasure of using both, so we can give you the full scoop here today.
Rabbit - Watch Together: The Premise
Despite the cute, kid-friendly imagery of the app’s old name, it wasn’t actually designed for children. In fact, the only reason we can find for the name is that it was developed by a company called Rabbit.
The concept of Rabbit - Watch Together was very simple. It synced your device or computer with someone else’s in another location, so you could watch things together despite the distance.
Say, for instance, that you and your partner were partway through a steamy British period drama, and one of you had to leave town. You could connect via Rabbit - Watch Together, and, well...watch it together.
No longer would one of you get in trouble for sneaking in an episode solo. You’d just set a time and a date, and you could enjoy your favorite shows and movies as if you were both in the same room.
You can think of it like Zoom or Skype but instead of hosting mind-numbing business meetings, it facilitated super-fun movie nights and viewing parties.
Kast - Watch Together really doesn’t stray too far from Rabbit’s formula. They promised fans of the platform that all the standard Rabbit features would stay put and that they’d be adding more features to make the app even better.
Is the Rabbit (Kast) - Watch Together App Enjoyable?
We happen to think that Rabbit - Watch Together was a pretty ingenious idea. It’s simple, it fills a gap in the market, it facilitates togetherness...it’s one of those things you kick yourself for not coming up with first.
As for whether it offered an enjoyable experience...yes, it absolutely did. Hanging out with loved ones is always fun, and the amount of freedom it provided in terms of the parameters of your hang-out session was great.
You could video chat, text chat, or voice chat, and it was a completely cross-platform program, meaning one person could be on the phone, while the other was on their computer.
As long as you both had a network connection, you could enjoy each other's company.
It wasn’t just a 1-on-1 app either. Rabbit - Watch Together allowed you to form groups of up to 25 people, paving the way for some epic streaming parties.
The group feature is something Kast wanted to work on. To compete with other live-streaming platforms such as Amazon Watch Party, they increased the maximum group capacity to 100 people.
Not all 100 participants can chat with each other, as that would end up in chaos. Instead, spectators can form their own chat groups of 20 people within the crowd — still pretty neat, right?
But…(there’s always a but), both the Rabbit - Watch Together and Kast - Watch Together app have been quite severely marred by bugs and strange updates that seem to remove more functionality than they add. You’ll also be battling connection drops pretty frequently.
Another thing to mention is that it’s not a VPN, so it won’t infiltrate geoblocked content, which means if one of you has US Netflix, while the other has UK Netflix, you won’t be able to watch things together. This, in part, diminishes the connectability aspect of the app we so enjoy.
Is the Rabbit (Kast) - Watch Together App Kid-Friendly?
Kast - Watch Together has an age rating of 17+, so it’s definitely not a good idea to let younger kids use it unsupervised, especially seeing as there are public rooms within the app that allow you to talk to strangers.
Having said that, we see a great deal of potential in children using this app in conjunction with a guardian.
Families can’t always be together, but using Kast, you can connect to your little one overseas or across borders, and enjoy a movie or a show together, helping to maintain or establish a bond and reduce the sting of one another’s absence.
Of course, any content viewed needs to be age-appropriate for the child, and they’ll need help navigating the interface from an adult on their end of things, but otherwise, we see a lot of potential here.
Is the Rabbit (Kast) - Watch Together App Educational?
Kast - Watch Together can absolutely be educational. It all depends on what you choose to view with your child.
Why not check out some documentaries on Netflix or indulge in some light-hearted fun facts videos on YouTube?
Is the Rabbit (Kast) - Watch Together App Worth It?
Kast has some in-app purchases that allow you to expand its social aspects a little, but otherwise, it’s completely free, so from a financial perspective, it’s worth the download.
The thing that worries us is the app's inconsistency at the minute. It would be truly heartbreaking to be having a lovely time watching a film with your child only to have the connection drop, bringing your bonding session to a short, sharp stop.
Sure, you can call them to say your goodbyes or try and reconnect later, but ideally, for such important moments, you’d want a more streamlined and reliable service.
Rabbit (Kast) - Watch Together App - The Final Verdict
Rabbit and Kast have built a decent foundation with this iOS app, but there’s certainly room for improvement. Then again, how much can we really expect of a free service?
If you want the same sort of functionality but in a more reliable and robust format, we recommend opting for one of the paid-for streaming party alternatives. At least until Kast releases an update that addresses the irritating bugs people are currently running into.
We give the Kast - Watch Together app 3/5.
