Netflix has made it easier than ever to hit the snooze button on productivity, creating a single button that's your one-stop portal to a lazy evening. Hit that big white button and the lights will dim, pesky smartphone notifications will cease, the streaming service will power up and an order will be placed at your favorite take out. Sounds pretty good, but there is a bit of a catch – you'll have to make it yourself.
The Netflix Switch is aimed directly at makers, and you'll need some reasonable know-how to get it up and running. Netflix has released detailed plans for building the little box at home, including all the materials required.
It's built on a Particle Core, which is a Wi-Fi-connected microcontroller, and you'll need to be comfortable with electronics, programming and some good old-fashioned soldering to get things up and running. Of course you'll also need some other compatible hardware, such as some Philips Hue smart LED lightbulbs for the dimming feature, and it's easiest to set up if your TV remote has a dedicated Netflix button.
You'll also need an always-on machine set up (the company recommends a Rasaspberry Pi) to act as an application server if you want the button to order food for you as well.
It's definitely a lot of work, but it's also quite the bucket of gold at the end of the DIY rainbow. Just imagine arriving home from a hard day at the office and slapping your palm down the ultimate chill-out button – quite possibly worth all that effort.
We've actually seen similar ideas to this before – iStrategyLabs'PiePal provided similar, though more limited, functionality, ordering pizza at the press of a button. Netflix's solution is pretty full-featured, and could be a ticket to some serious lazy evening bliss.
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