With a lot to look at throughout so many streaming providers, it’s solely too simple to lose observe of every thing.
That’s the place an app referred to as Trakt is available in. Trakt can let you know the place to look at just about any streaming present or film, however it could possibly additionally bear in mind how a lot of a collection you’ve watched and maintain you within the loop on new episodes.
While Trakt has been round since 2010, it not too long ago added a solution to mechanically observe what you’re watching throughout a half-dozen main streaming providers. It’s a key differentiator from different streaming information apps, corresponding to Reelgood and JustWatch, whose show-tracking options require you to handle your watch historical past manually. The function is a part of Trakt’s VIP subscription, which prices $6 monthly or $60 per 12 months.
I acquired a short lived VIP membership to check out the automated monitoring, and whereas there’s bunch extra I’d wish to see from Trakt earlier than paying that toll myself, it’s a promising glimpse at how streaming guides must work.
How Trakt tracks your reveals
Jared Newman / Foundry
If you do have a VIP membership, you’ll be able to arrange automated monitoring by Trakt’s cellular apps for iOS or Android. There you’ll discover a “Streaming Scrobbler” menu for logging into every of your streaming providers.
Trakt at present helps automated monitoring for Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Max, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV+, with extra to return sooner or later. After logging in, you’ll be able to choose which consumer profiles to sync, and the app will begin pulling not too long ago watched objects into its “Up Next” menu. The result’s a unified listing of every thing you’re within the technique of watching.
If you choose one thing to look at by Trakt, it’ll load that content material within the acceptable streaming app, and something new you watch will mechanically sync again to Trakt’s Up Next menu. Trakt additionally affords an Apple TV app, which you should utilize to play movies in your tv; an app for Android TV/Google TV gadgets is within the works.
Trakt underneath the hood
To monitor what you’re watching, Trakt depends on a third-party service referred to as Younify, which I wrote about a couple of years ago. Younify is from the identical firm that makes PlayOn, a DVR for streaming services, and it makes use of the identical underlying expertise to scrape your viewing historical past from streaming platforms.
In essence, Younify has discovered the folder construction that streaming providers use to prepare content material. That permits it to see, for example, which reveals are contained in the “Continue Watching” part in apps like Hulu and Netflix.
Younify already affords its personal app for iOS and Android, but it surely’s bare-bones. You can’t use the app so as to add reveals to your watchlist or take away objects out of your watch historical past, and it gives no details about a present’s important consensus or unreleased episodes.
The Younify app, whose information Trakt is utilizing.
Jared Newman / Foundry
Instead of constructing out these options by itself, Younify is now partnering with apps like Trakt, which pay for Younify’s information on a per-user foundation. In addition to Trakt, Younify additionally works with Queue and CineSearch, which have their very own streaming advice providers.
Of these, I discover Trakt most compelling, as a result of it’s targeted as a lot on maintaining with present reveals as discovering new ones. Beyond simply exhibiting what you’ve watched these days, it additionally features a schedule of upcoming episodes, which is useful for plotting out the weekly drip of reveals like Severance.
Trakt has room for enchancment
Trakt’s help for a number of watchlists provides additional complexity.
Jared Newman / Foundry
As I discussed earlier, Trakt has been round for about 15 years, and co-founder Justin Nemeth says it has roughly 811,000 month-to-month lively customers. There’s clearly a devoted viewers for obsessive present monitoring, even when it’s not occurring mechanically.
But for a newcomer like me, Trakt’s many bells and whistles may be overwhelming. Basic actions like including a present to your watchlist require a number of menu layers to navigate, and its many menu icons—which embrace issues like opinions, non-public notes, and content material collections—may be powerful to decipher. Trakt’s Apple TV app is way simpler to make use of, with stripped-down menu choices and clearer button labels, however that simply makes me yearn for an easier model of the service on cellular gadgets and net browsers.
Trakt’s Apple TV app is less complicated to navigate.
Jared Newman / Foundry
Trakt can also be nonetheless engaged on bringing in additional information from Younify, corresponding to objects you’ve added to Netflix’s personal watchlist. Support for extra streaming providers is coming as effectively, together with Peacock and Paramount+, as Younify makes that information obtainable to app builders.
Beyond that, Trakt is lacking a golden alternative to assist individuals determine which streaming providers to cancel. While the app affords “month in review” and “year in review” options, they don’t let you know how a lot time you’ve spent watching particular person streaming providers. That info alone—and possibly some convenient cancellation links—may justify the price of a VIP subscription if it helped lower your expenses elsewhere.
Why Trakt issues
Most streaming gadgets have already got their very own methods of monitoring what you’re watching. You’ll now discover “Continue Watching” rows on Roku, Fire TV, Google TV, and Apple TV, and all of them are able to wanting throughout totally different streaming providers.
But as I wrote back when Younify first launched, these options have blind spots. Apple TV and Fire TV don’t observe your watch historical past from Netflix. Google TV doesn’t observe Paramount+. Roku’s “Continue Watching” menu is tucked so far out of sight you may not understand it exists. And aside from Apple, none have the flexibility to mark particular person episodes as watched or unwatched, so issues can simply get out of whack.
Trakt is a extra full service, and it’s not tied to any particular streaming platform. If you might have an Apple TV field in a single room and a Roku in one other, Trakt will monitor your streaming progress all the identical. And in contrast to main streaming platforms, it has no sponsored content material larding up its menus, and no vested curiosity in pushing you towards any explicit service. It’s the form of service that’s sorely wanted now, even when it isn’t excellent.
Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter for extra streaming TV recommendation.