YouTube’s sleep timer is shedding its Premium exclusivity among a slew of other updates

YouTube is constantly making changes to its feature set, some that are an instant hit, while others outright don’t make sense. The streaming giant suggests that user feedback is pivotal to the major updates it rolls out to the platform each year, with over two dozen improvements headed to YouTube this time around, “each designed with viewers and creators in mind.”

These updates have started officially rolling out today across the platform’s mobile app (including YouTube Music), on the web and on Smart TVs.

One of the features made official today, which was previously in testing for Premium subscribers, is a YouTube Sleep Timer.

The timer functionality, which first made its way to YouTube Music earlier this year, was made available to Premium subscribers on the regular YouTube app back in August. As the tool’s name suggests, it essentially lets users set a timer for a specified duration, after which, the app automatically pauses playback.

The experimental feature is now shedding its Premium exclusivity and rolling out to all YouTube users “across mobile devices.” Here’s how you can access the setting:

1. Play a video of your choice.
2. Tap the Settings cogwheel on the top right.
3. Tap Sleep timer and select the timer’s duration.

Currently, timer duration presets include 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, minutes, 1 hour, or “End of video.” It’s worth noting that I am not seeing the feature yet in Canada on both Premium and non-Premium YouTube accounts.

Elsewhere, the streaming giant also indicated that visual changes are heading to YouTube, hinting at the recent wave of Pink seen across YouTube and YouTube Music being an intended change that will eventually make its way to the YouTube app for TVs.

In addition to bumping up the max Shorts duration to three minutes (from 60 seconds), Shorts on TVs now surface with a new UI aimed at allowing users to engage with the content while not interrupting the video playback. This is made possible by overlaying comments and/or exploring the channel’s shop to the side of the Short with a gradient background, as seen in the screenshot above.

Miniplayer makeover

YouTube’s new miniplayer, first spotted in action back in July, has also just been made official. The updated miniplayer with PiP support essentially lets users multitask on YouTube (finding new videos with one currently playing), and now it functions more seamlessly than before as it can be resized and moved around. This comes in addition to several other upgrades, including:

• Fine-tunable playback speed: Make adjustments in increments of 0.05.
• Collaborative playlist creation: An easier way to invite friends and family to contribute to a playlist via a link or a QR code for the TV app.
• Badges: Engaging with creators on YouTube or YouTube Music can net you a new badge that can be shown off. Badges can be earned by completing varying types of tasks, like completing quizes, being one of the first set of paid members of a creator’s channel, being a top listener on YouTube Music, and more. Badges are rolling out in the “next several weeks.”