Entertainment

Netflix Knows When You Are Sleeping

by Emma Cueto

The danger of watching Netflix before bed is that you might fall asleep without pausing – and wake up a few hours later and half a season ahead to witness some major spoilers. Not that this has ever happened to me or anything. I definitely have never stayed up until 3am binge-watching House of Cards and then jerked awake right at the part where Frank ... You know what, never mind. But for those of you who are less responsible that I am, there may soon be a new device to prevent you from such sleep-related Netflix problems.

Participants at a Netflix hackathon in California have developed a way to use a Fitbit (one of those wireless activity trackers you can wear around your wrist) to pause Netflix when you fall asleep. Isn't technology grand? I'm sure this is exactly what Thomas Edison envisioned when he made that first light bulb.

Basically, the device works by monitoring the wearer and uploading its data to the wearer's computer. When it's determined that this person has fallen asleep, Netflix automatically pauses the queue. When you wake up, Netflix will let you know that you fell asleep, and you can resume watching at the specially marked sleep bookmark. Easy as that.

So far this technology isn't available to consumers. It's just a neat idea some guys came up with at an internal Netflix hackathon. But if it ever does hit the market, it could be pretty cool.

Though internal hackathons are just a chance for tech people to experiment and are meant only for the company and their employees, devices created and showcased at internal hackathons can lead to consumer products eventually. And there are a few more from this particular hackathon that we'd love to get our hands on as well, including custom playlists. (Why don't we have those already, by the way?)

And an innovation called Netflix Beam, which allows you to let your friends use your Netflix account while they're over at your apartment without giving them your password. So it's a way to be generous without being too generous.

And lots of other ways that Netflix can become even cooler and more convenient as it slowly takes over our lives.