Video: Netflix Just Invented Socks That Pause Your Show If You Fall Asleep

What do you get if you combine an Arduino, knitting, a fair amount of DIY chutzpah, and a genetic and/or epigenetic predisposition towards falling asleep while watching TV? Netflix socks, of course.

A few months ago, some enterprising types at Netflix created The Switch—essentially a single button to dim the lights, silence your mobile phone, order takeaway, and start streaming your favourite show or film. Netflix shared the schematics and parts list for The Switch so that you could make your own.

Now they've done it again with a pair of socks that automatically pauses your stream if you fall asleep.

   Let's be clear: making a pair of Netflix socks won't be easy, nor will it be cheap. The parts/materials list adds up to around £40, and that doesn't include the knitting lesson that you'll probably have to take. (You could also add the circuitry to an existing pair of socks, but that kind of defeats the spirit of the thing.)

The brains of the operation is an Arduino Pro Trinket, a small microcontroller that costs about £10/$10. Connected to that is an accelerometer (£10/$15), some LEDs for blasting infrared at your TV (£10/$10), and a fairly sizeable 500mAh lithium-polymer battery (£5/$8). To wire it all together Netflix suggests using a small piece of perfboard, and then either solder-and-wires or conductive thread. The schematic looks fairly simple (if you've done some basic electronics work in the past, anyway).

Once you've built your hyper-advanced sock, you then need to tune the IR LEDs to your TV set or streaming box. You'll also need to do a little programming—but again, Netflix has provided you with most of the code that you'll need.

After that, just slip on your Netflix sock (well, hopefully you made two so that you don't have a cold foot) and begin yet another TV marathon. We recommend Jessica Jones. If your foot doesn't move for one minute (you can modify the code to increase or reduce the delay) then the IR LEDs automatically pause your stream. Netflix says that the accelerometer is sensitive enough to tell the difference between "raptly watching Netflix" (i.e. micro foot movements) vs. asleep (no movement at all).

If you want to increase the accuracy of the sleep detection Netflix proposes adding a heart rate sensor—but at about £20 for the sensor you're starting to get into incredibly expensive sock territory.