Netflix and Chill sounds like a grand ‘ol time and there are certainly plenty of accessories available to facilitate that. But if you’re like me, sometimes you really do just want to get cozy, throw on a show, get a pile of snacks, and wake up the following morning on your couch next to an empty bottle of Woodford, covered in cookie crumbs and mild regret about your life choices. I have no idea why my Tinder isn’t blowing up. However, binge-watching does come with an eminent downfall. Inevitably you will slip into unconsciousness by the fourth or fifth glas… episode. When you do come about, remembering where you left off is difficult and wastes precious time of recall and investigative work; and all you want is to just get back into the show and make the pain go away. Lucky for those such as myself, technology is here to help with problems that really matter; thus we have the Neflix Socks.
Basically, these can, with varying degrees of adjustable accuracy determine when you have lost the battle with the tipple or ice cream and as you slip into a comfortable state of chimera, send an IR signal to your receiver, pausing the show. But hang on! As you madly wave your money in the air, begging Netflix to take it for a pair of these miraculous pieces of apparel, the socks are not for sale. You’re going to have to work for this level of bliss with a DIY project that involves: wiring, programming and possibly — knitting. These are also not exactly cheap to build as you need a number of parts to make it all work. Netflix does provide detailed instructions and a an entire parts list (with links) to help you along but essentially you have an Arduino Pro Trinket, a small microcontroller working with an accelerometer and LEDs. The accelerometer reads your foot movements and after a period of inactivity will pause your show.
“We’ve based our sleep detection system on a popular method called actigraphy. An accelerometer detects when you’ve stopped moving for a prolonged period of time and triggers a signal to your TV that pauses Netflix. When it detects that you’ve dozed off, an LED light in the cuff of the sock flashes red, warning that the pause signal is about to be sent to your TV. Any motion will stop it from firing. The accelerometer is very sensitive to little movements, so it’s good at detecting when you’re just sitting still, raptly watching Netflix, and when you’ve actually fallen asleep. However, there are ways to increase your socks’ accuracy.” -Netflix
As mentioned, there is some light programming involved with the provided code as well. Add a heartbeat monitor to really impress your friends, although that significantly increases the cost and work involved.
You could save yourself a little time by stuffing this into existing socks, but if you’re a purist, Netflix has some design patterns based on their popular shows for you to knit. Don’t forget, you will need to make two of these, because no one wants to walk around their apartment wearing sweatpants and only one arduino-powered sock like some weirdo.
While modern sleep timers and apps make this seem like overkill, that is obviously not the point. The Netflix Socks are a follow up to a previous project Netflix published, The Switch, which let you dims the lights, silences incoming calls, orders takeout, and turn on Netflix with just a press of a button. Why ever leave the house at all?
If you do wind up making these, we would love to see them in the comments below or on social media, just don’t forget to tag us.
[button link=”http://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-socks-turn-off-the-show-when-you-fall-asleep-2015-12″ icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Business Insider[/button]
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
