Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Netflix socks detect when you've dozed off and pause your TV show

makeit.netflix.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 195 posts

Re: Netflix socks detect when you've dozed off and pause your TV show

#81

Post by ChuckMcM »

floatrock wrote: post #42

I RTFA, I know this an arduino-based DIY hobby project. But if something like this ever comes out for real, the ability to doze off and pause your TV show will be a trojan horse... You've seen those charts where people use their smart watch to record their heart rate during the game of thrones finale? (No? Here you go: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/08/13/what-game-of-thrones-... ) Sure, downloading the Netflix pau…

Oh its a lot more sinister than that, and its already here. An app I tried to run on my Android phone would run a video ad before it started, it used the front facing camera to determine if someone was looking at the phone. I looked away and started typing on my laptop and the ad paused, I looked back and it restarted, I looked away and the ad paused. I looked back and deleted the App.

Re: Netflix socks detect when you've dozed off and pause your TV show

#82

Post by kuschku »

tajen wrote: post #46
Someone1234 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What interests me is how inconsistent it is. For example, I can go a whole afternoon some days without it auto-pausing, while others as you said, you can go two episodes and it will pause on you. I suspect Netflix tracks window focus via JavaScript at minimal, and maybe other metrics too to try and guesstimate user idle-ness. Interestingly when I am in a full screen game (and Netflix on another screen) it "never" pau…

Perhaps they don't want Netflix to be used for public screens (laundry, hairdresser) and randomization is necessary to check for the presence of a human.

But you can automate that away.

Re: Netflix socks detect when you've dozed off and pause your TV show

#83

Post by slavik81 »

Pxtl wrote: post #55
slavik81 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really only became possible when they decided to auto-play new episodes, which is a bad feature in general. There are quite a few shows with really nice music videos in their ending credits. Shrinking the video to the size of a postage stamp and kicking me into a new episode is a rather annoying. They also have a terrible habit of skipping the opening credits. The credits are often funny or beautiful. Every time…

Different strokes for different folks - I like watching the opening credits for the 1st episode, but not the 3rd.

That's often true for me too. There's just certain shows for which that's not the case, and I really remember fighting against the interface.

Re: Netflix socks detect when you've dozed off and pause your TV show

#84

Post by mattdotc »

phyllostachys wrote: post #54
slavik81 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really only became possible when they decided to auto-play new episodes, which is a bad feature in general. There are quite a few shows with really nice music videos in their ending credits. Shrinking the video to the size of a postage stamp and kicking me into a new episode is a rather annoying. They also have a terrible habit of skipping the opening credits. The credits are often funny or beautiful. Every time…

Yes, this. I turned off the auto-play-next feature but there is no way to avoid the shrink-credits thing. :-/ I never noticed it skipping the opening credits though.

A long time ago I saw someone post that support was able to turn off this feature on the account. No idea if that is true.

Re: Netflix socks detect when you've dozed off and pause your TV show

#85

Post by jaredsohn »

phyllostachys wrote: post #54
slavik81 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really only became possible when they decided to auto-play new episodes, which is a bad feature in general. There are quite a few shows with really nice music videos in their ending credits. Shrinking the video to the size of a postage stamp and kicking me into a new episode is a rather annoying. They also have a terrible habit of skipping the opening credits. The credits are often funny or beautiful. Every time…

Yes, this. I turned off the auto-play-next feature but there is no way to avoid the shrink-credits thing. :-/ I never noticed it skipping the opening credits though.

>Yes, this. I turned off the auto-play-next feature but there is no way to avoid the shrink-credits thing. :-/

If in Chrome, try the 'hide postplay' feature of the Flix Plus by Lifehacker extension.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/flix-plus-by-lifeh...

Re: Netflix socks detect when you've dozed off and pause your TV show

#86

Post by Cyph0n »

golergka wrote: post #74
HelloMcFly wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine a world where the eventual primary use for type of technology is for for ad-based content where the screen pauses when you stop paying attention to the ad. No worries about that with Netflix, at least.

Have you seen Black Mirror?

Amazing show. Incidentally, Netflix ordered a third season a few months back. I can't wait.

Re: Netflix socks detect when you've dozed off and pause your TV show

#87

Post by jdmichal »

ncallaway wrote: post #53
CaseyM wrote: post #34

What about socks for truck drivers to detect if they are dozing? Have them set off a phone alarm, etc. Better yet, can FitBit, etc. detect dozing and use the vibrating alarm to alert?

While I think an alertness sensor is probably a good idea for drivers, I don't think an accelerometer is a useful way of going about it. These don't really notice that a user is asleep until they have entered a fairly deep sleep, which is fine for pausing a TV show but far too late for alerting someone who is operating a motor vehicle. With Netflix if the accelerometer doesn't notice you've fallen for 5 minutes befor…

Not to mention that being in a moving truck will probably muck up the accelerometer readings...

Re: Netflix socks detect when you've dozed off and pause your TV show

#88

Post by floatrock »

janesvilleseo wrote: post #64
floatrock wrote: post #42

I RTFA, I know this an arduino-based DIY hobby project. But if something like this ever comes out for real, the ability to doze off and pause your TV show will be a trojan horse... You've seen those charts where people use their smart watch to record their heart rate during the game of thrones finale? (No? Here you go: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/08/13/what-game-of-thrones-... ) Sure, downloading the Netflix pau…

Amazing point! Getting that data will be incredibly important. Adding play/pause/next options to your watch to control your smart tv would also be great too. Also allows another reason to download the app for the watch.

Climate change is incredibly important. Net neutrality is incredibly important. Growing wealth inequality is incredibly important. This kind of data is a business model, nothing more.

Re: Netflix socks detect when you've dozed off and pause your TV show

#89

Post by skizm »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #81
floatrock wrote: post #42

I RTFA, I know this an arduino-based DIY hobby project. But if something like this ever comes out for real, the ability to doze off and pause your TV show will be a trojan horse... You've seen those charts where people use their smart watch to record their heart rate during the game of thrones finale? (No? Here you go: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/08/13/what-game-of-thrones-... ) Sure, downloading the Netflix pau…

Oh its a lot more sinister than that, and its already here. An app I tried to run on my Android phone would run a video ad before it started, it used the front facing camera to determine if someone was looking at the phone. I looked away and started typing on my laptop and the ad paused, I looked back and it restarted, I looked away and the ad paused. I looked back and deleted the App.

Yikes, that's straight out of a Black Mirror episode.
Post reply on HN