Which TV providers offer multi-room?

Dan Howdle • November 14th, 2024

Multi-room TV allows you to watch your favourite shows in different rooms throughout the house, all on the same TV subscription. So you can watch the morning news while you're still in bed, keep the kids entertained in their bedroom, or watch a blockbuster in the living room all at the same time.

We're getting pretty used to this being a standard feature when it comes to streaming apps like Netflix, but it remains a different proposition with a TV subscription from Virgin Media, BT, EE, Sky or TalkTalk. They all have different ways, means and rules when it comes to multi-room. So much so it's well worth taking a deeper dive.

Virgin Media multi-room TV

You can get up to two Virgin TV 360 Mini boxes with Virgin Media multi-room. These allow you to watch all the channels you have as part of your Virgin TV subscription, as well as on demand shows and apps. They are even 4K and HDR ready so you can enjoy maximum picture quality in every room (subject to having a 4K TV of course).

Customers get a first Mini 360 for an extra £10 per month, and can then request a second Mini box for an extra £5 per month. Those with the Mega Volt bundle will have one free Mini box included as part of their subscription, but it won't simply arrive on your installation date – you'll need to request it.

Virgin's main TV 360 box can record six shows while you watch a seventh, should you ever want to. With 1TB of storage, you can record up to 500 hours of shows in SD or 100 hours in HD. The 360 Mini boxes do not offer recording capability, but you can watch any shows that you recorded on your main 360 box as all the boxes will be linked.

The Virgin Media 360 Mini boxes do require a cabled connection in order to work, however. The coaxial cable that brings your Virgin signal into your home is needed for the Mini boxes as well as your main 360 box. This can mean some quite major cable routing throughout your home, putting it at a distinct disadvantage versus Sky Whole Home (Sky TV's multiroom solution), which works entirely over Wi-Fi.

Sky Whole Home (multiroom TV from Sky)

Sky hasn't technically ditched its satellite service (Sky Q) as it's still serving it up to those who already have it. However, it is phasing Sky Q out in favour of Sky Stream by not offering it to new customers.

To have Sky Multiscreen with Sky Q, you will need a Sky Q Mini box and to subscribe to Sky Multiscreen which costs an extra £15 per month on top of your Sky TV subscription pack. The first Sky Q Mini box is free but additional Mini boxes will cost you £99. You can connect up to four Mini boxes in total, but you cannot watch TV on all of them at once. You can watch your main Sky Q box plus two Sky Q Mini boxes at the same time. Assuming your package and TV both support HD, you can watch shows in HD on a Mini box, but not UHD.

With Sky Stream it's a bit cheaper and simpler because you only need to increase the number of Sky Stream Pucks. You'll need to subscribe to Sky Whole Home, which will cost you an extra few quid a month, and then you can have as many Pucks as you want. However, you'll need to bear in mind that you only get one additional Puck rolled into the proce of Sky Whole Home. Each additional Puck after that has a £39.95 on-off cost attached to it.

Sky Glass is a TV that comes with Sky’s TV service built in, so if you sign up for Whole Home you will be provided with one puck for connecting to a separate TV. Sky Stream is viewed on a puck as standard, so if you sign up for Whole Home you will receive a second puck to connect to a second TV. Like the Sky Q Mini boxes, the Sky pucks do not require a cabled connection and will work over Wi-Fi.

Read our Sky Whole Home guide for full details.

BT/EE Extra Box

BT TV no longer exists. Instead, BT bundles EE TV with its broadband to make one rather confusing product with a choice of vastly different set-top boxes and obtuse delivery methods, available from two different broadband providers (BT and EE). We're not enormous fans of EE TV if that's not already clear.

Anyway, with EE TV you get either the EE TV Box Pro or an Apple TV 4K (device) that's been coded to be able to run the EE TV app where you'll watch all your content. For multiroom it's either the BT TV Box Pro Mini for customers that want to watch their EE TV subscription on an EE TV Box Pro, but no multiroom options whatsoever if you choose the Apple TV 4K. In the case of the EE TV Box Pro option, both the main box and the Mini version connect to your BT or EE broadband via Wi-Fi so there is no need for cabling or even an aerial. BT’s extra box service costs £10 per month on top of your subscription package.

Unlike Sky, BT and EE customers are limited to only adding a maximum of two extra boxes. The BT TV Box Pro Mini does not offer the option to record TV, but you can pause and rewind and watch in 4K HDR, just like on the main box.

Other ways to get multi-room TV

If you tend to watch a lot of subscription TV streaming services, such as Netflix, NOW TV and Amazon Prime Video, rather than live channels on Freeview, then you probably don’t need to sign up to a multiscreen service at all. All these apps can be watched on almost any screen, from a large TV to a smartphone.

However, if you specifically want to watch them on a TV screen in more than one room, then the easy answer is to turn your second TV into a smart TV by investing in some streaming tech such as the Roku or the Amazon Fire Stick. Simply plug it in and watch your favourite shows. If you already have a smart TV, then you’re sorted. You just need to open the relevant app and log in.

Watching Netflix in more than one room

A Basic Netflix subscription only allows you to watch shows on one device at a time, but its Standard membership option allows you to stream shows to two different devices at the same time. The Premium option lets you watch on up to four screens simultaneously. Sky, BT/EE and Virgin Media all now include a Basic Netflix plan with their TV packages at no extra cost. To watch in a second room as part of your multiroom subscription, you will need to pay to upgrade to Standard or Premium.

Watching Amazon Prime Video in more than one room

If you've got Amazon Prime Video, you can stream up to three different videos at the same time using the same Amazon account. However, the same video can only be streamed to two devices at a time.

Watching NOW TV in more than one room

With NOW TV, you can register up to six devices on your account but you can only watch TV on one at the same time. However, with the option of NOW Boost for an extra few pounds a month, you can watch on three devices at once.