How To Activate Pluto TV [January 2020]

Unlike many streaming services on the market, Pluto TV is completely free and offers thousands of TV shows and movies, organized into a consistent and logical system of channels. Although Pluto TV does not require registration to enjoy all of its benefits, signing up lets you customize your experience.

The only reason it offers registration is to hide and unhide channels, favorite channels, and set up your Android device as a remote. Registration ensures that your preferences are stored in your free account. In this article, you’ll see how to install and activate your Pluto TV service on a wide variety of devices. Let’s get started!

As part of the effort to make Pluto TV a solution for everyone, the service has been ported to and made compatible with a wide variety of platforms. The current installations include the following:

• iPad and iPhone: Get the app here.
• Android phones and tablets, as well as Android TV: You can download the official app from Google Play.
• 4^th generation Apple TV devices: You can find the app on iTunes.
• Various Amazon Kindle and Fire tablets, as well as Fire TV and Fire TV Stick: You can download the official app here.
• Various Vizio, Samsung, and Sony smart TVs have the app preinstalled if available.
• Windows PC and Mac computers: Download the app for your OS here.
• PlayStation 4: The app is found here or through the Playstation Store on the device.
• Playstation 3: The app is downloadable from here or via the Playstation Store on the console.
• Xbox One: App is available here or via the Xbox Games Store (formerly Xbox Live Marketplace) on the game console.
• Browsers: The app requires no installation when accessed through the Pluto TV website on PC, Mac, or mobile devices.

In addition to US availability, Pluto TV is available in other countries. However, negotiations for streaming rights to specific content may limit the accessibility of some channels and content from one country to the next. International viewers can download the computer app from the “International Desktop App” section here.

Signing Up for Pluto TV

Signing up for the platform is simple. You can do this by following these steps:

Step 1

Visit the Pluto TV website for logins or use the app on your phone. Click on the ‘Sign Up‘ option.

Step 2

Fill out the information required and click ‘Sign-Up Free.’

Step 3

You’re all set! You can download the app to watch great programs at no cost.

Do you need to activate Pluto TV?

Pluto TV is great because it’s free and offers a lot of features. Fortunately, some of those features include using your smartphone as a remote, and to add favorites. To use the extras, you will need to activate your Pluto TV account on the devices you choose to watch the content on.

Technically, in 2021 you don’t have to activate the service. Pluto TV has an actual registration process, but it currently provides no benefits or features. They mention that an account is used for hiding and unhiding channels, favoriting and unfavoriting channels, and using your Android device as a remote.

However, those features have been turned off temporarily and are not available. It’s hard to say when those options will be usable, but for now, there is no need to register. If you decide to set up an account anyway, you’ll get notifications for any updates as they occur. As for now, all “My Pluto” features are not visible, except that the heart icon is still present and tappable in Android, even though it doesn’t do anything at the moment.

You can watch Pluto TV on multiple devices without any limits.

How to Activate Pluto TV

Although it isn’t necessary right now, you may still want to activate the service for when the features become available. To activate Pluto TV follow these steps:

Step 1

Sign into Pluto TV by visiting the My Pluto TV website.

Step 2

Locate the 6-digit code needed to activate the service.

Step 3

You can activate using the app on your phone or by visiting Pluto’s activation site and follow the prompts.

Chromecast Pluto TV

There are two ways to cast Pluto TV to your Chromecast. You can go through Chrome on your computer or you can use the Pluto TV mobile app. Let’s take a look at how it’s done.

Chromecast from the Web

Follow these steps to cast Pluto TV through Chrome.

Step 1

Launch Chrome on your computer.

Step 2

Visit the Pluto TV website and log in if necessary.

Step 3

Click on the “More” icon at the top-right corner of the browser window.

Step 4

Select the “Cast…” option from the menu.

Step 5

Select Chromecast. If it’s already connected, an icon signifying its active status will show up.

Chromecast from Mobile Devices

Follow these steps to cast Pluto TV through your mobile device. This guide works for both Android and iOS devices.

1. Launch Pluto TV on your device.
2. Go to the channel you wish to cast.
3. Tap the “Cast” icon at the top-right corner.
4. Select Chromecast from the list of available casting devices.

Toggle Closed Captions

Here’s how to enable closed captions on various platforms.

Android

This guide is for both Android phones and tablets.

1. Launch Settings.
2. Select Accessibility.
3. Tap “Captions”.
4. Tap the slider switch to toggle captions on.
5. Launch Pluto TV.
6. Tap the screen.
7. Tap the “CC” icon.

Select the language you prefer.

Amazon

Here’s how to turn on captions on Amazon devices.

1. Enable Fire TV’s accessibility settings.
2. Navigate to the “Captions” section and activate it.
3. Go to Pluto TV and press the Menu (center) button on your TV’s remote.
4. Select the language to display for captions.

Roku

Here’s how to turn on closed captions on your Roku TV device.

1. Launch Pluto TV on your Roku device.
2. Play something.
3. Press the “*” (asterisk) button on the remote. This will launch the Options menu.
4. Navigate to “Closed captioning.”
5. Press “Right” and “Left” arrows to select from the list of available captions.

Is there a search feature on Pluto TV?

Tragically, and almost inexplicably, there is NO search feature on Pluto TV. You cannot search in the channel guide, all you can do is browse. This is, of course, a slight inconvenience, but be sure to explore some of the things you can do with Pluto TV for more information. Also, there is a third-party solution available called JustWatch that has a section for Pluto TV where most, if not all, the site’s content is broken out and searchable.

In closing, the number of available channels and the amount of on-demand content is rapidly increasing on Pluto TV. Considering that it’s gaining new users with incredible speed, it is safe to assume that Pluto TV is here to stay.