Personal Series Lock and profile PINs

Personal is visible, but the service must support it

The newer native app includes Personal alongside Together and Separately. Personal is designed to use your profile PIN to control your own next episodes without inviting a second person.

The currently deployed Odyssey service does not yet accept Personal mode. Its creation endpoint accepts Together and Separately and requires at least two selected participants. You may therefore see Personal in the app and still receive an error when creating or using it. Do not rely on Personal as an available protection until the connected service supports it.

A profile-entry PIN remains a separate feature. It protects opening that profile, rather than creating an episode-by-episode waiting rule.

Protect access to your profile

1. Open Settings → Profiles → Manage Family Profiles.
2. Choose Edit for the profile you want to protect.
3. Enable Require PIN to enter profile.
4. Use Set profile PIN, or Change profile PIN for an existing lock, and complete the required verification.
5. Save the profile and check its lock state before switching away and reopening it.

If you are removing an existing profile-entry lock, the editor requires the current PIN. It can show Verify PIN to remove lock. Creating a different profile or changing a source is not a substitute for confirming the existing PIN.

A profile-entry PIN is useful when you want to separate access to personal history and settings. It does not, by itself, create an episode-by-episode waiting rule.

Understand the different unlock scopes

For a supported shared lock, the creator can enable Require profile PIN for Watch Anyway. Each participating protected profile needs its own PIN. Approval applies to the requested episode and playback hand-off; it does not unlock the whole app session.

The newer Personal challenge has different controls: Unlock This Episode and Unlock Until Odyssey Closes. The latter is designed to unlock that locked series for the same authenticated profile until Odyssey closes, rather than unlock every series or the whole app. Both require a Personal-capable service to return a valid scoped approval. The deployed service inspected for this update does not supply that support.

Worked example

Ellis wants their history separate from a shared living-room profile, so they enable Require PIN to enter profile on their own profile. That protects profile entry without involving anyone else’s episode progress.

Ellis and another adult can separately use a supported two-person Separately Series Lock and optionally require profile PIN approval for Watch Anyway. When Ellis sees Personal in the newer app, they should not assume it has become a working solo restriction on the connected service. A dummy second profile is not a documented replacement.

Common questions

Why can I select Personal but creating the lock fails? The newer client and deployed service currently differ. Personal needs service support in addition to the visible app option.

Does a shared lock’s PIN unlock the whole evening? No. Shared Watch Anyway approval remains scoped to one episode and playback hand-off. The Personal-only session choice is a different, currently service-limited flow.

Can I use an owner PIN instead of my profile PIN? Follow the active profile’s PIN prompt. These credentials have different purposes.

How do I remove profile-entry protection? Edit the profile, disable Require PIN to enter profile and verify the current PIN when asked, then save. This does not automatically remove Series Locks.