Chromecast with Google TV may soon get Kids Profiles, but multi-user support is still missing

The Chromecast with Google TV is fantastic, but shortly after getting our hands on it, we realized it had a major flaw – you couldn’t actually switch between profiles at a device level, and instead were relegated to manually switching profiles per service!

We called this out as a glaring oversight or just an odd design decision back when it first came to our attention. While there’s been no mention of multi-user support coming to the device, per se, it may soon be receiving Kids Profiles, according to Android Police.

Just wanted to post an update that Kids Profiles should be rolling out in the next month (or so).

Restricted profiles are indeed deprecated in GTV and replaced by the new feature “Kids Profiles”, which allows you to set up a safe space for kids on Google TV. During onboarding, you can choose what apps to make available to kids. Youtube kids are available by default and other installed apps required parent opt-in before they are made available to the kid. Leaving the kids’ profile can be restricted by a PIN to prevent kids from accidentally going back to the parent account.

Google Representative via the Issue Tracker

While visiting the Issue Tracker linked above leads to a page that states that my email address does not have permission to view it, one can only surmise that access to the page was pulled shortly after the page went live. Perhaps the Googler who posted it accidentally made it public and was found out before realizing his or her mistake.

Either way, Android Police seems to have pulled the above quote before that occurred, and it spells good news for Chromecast with Google TV owners! We know that Google has been all about making its services and products much more family-friendly over this past year, but it’s odd that they would add support for kids to have their own profile before allowing users to swap between standard profiles.

Would you and your family benefit more from a Kids Profile, or from the ability for each parent or individual adult in the home to swap between their profiles? We’re interested in hearing your thoughts as it pertains to this whole multi-user switching fiasco, so let’s discuss in the comments!