Netflix Switch - Netflix gets into the Smart Home

Netflix released plans for an internet connected button that will start a movie and dim your lights. They are asking for submissions. I am looking at the docs now to try and work it into SmartThings. Check it out.

http://makeit.netflix.com/the-switch

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Very interesting. My initial though when reading your post was use a button to call an action on a raspberry pi that starts netflix and starts chromecasting it to the tv.

That’s what I got from reading about it too. It just struck me as odd as they recently closed their API to the public and now they create an entire sub-domain for makers. I think this is just the first project in a larger initiative. I could be wrong but it seems as if this were just a one off thing it could have just been made into a blog post rather than creating an entire site. I hope this signals that they are about to open back up to developers.

Oh, boy! Here we go again. How many “smart” buttons does an average person need? :smile:

I don’t know but it’s starting to look like the future of IoT means having hundreds of single purpose buttons all over your house. Has anyone seen the Pizza Hut button that orders the medium pepperoni? I can only find the cheese button. Ahhhhhhgggggg.

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My Harmony Remote Button invokes Netflix via Roku. Done!

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do you have the Harmony Home remote? I’ve got the Harmony 700 http://support.logitech.com/product/harmony-700-advanced-universal-remote and it works okay but it won’t dim the lights or anything like that. I’ve often looked at the Home remotes but it’s a lot of money to spend on something I don’t “need”. I mean, I just spent $100 on a Nest Protect, so this isn’t about need necessarily, but I can at least justify that for safety…loosely anyway :-).

Based on their commercials, I feel like I should be tweeting and texting emoji to place my orders… We’re so behind the times with this smart home stuff. :stuck_out_tongue:

:pizza:

Netflix would get a bigger bang for a buck by integrating with Alexa, but I guess Amazon wouldn’t be too excited about it. Guess Netflix have to build their own voice assistant now. :slight_smile:

It’s more than a little odd that they created a website for makers after killing off their wildly popular API. That was almost exactly a year ago, so maybe they are about to reintroduce something for developers.

that would be awesome.

Netflixa: Alexa, shut your pie hole.
Alexa: Netflixa, put a sock in it.

then hopefully it escalates until they start making out

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Sweet, so a “Netflix and Chill” button…

brown chicken brown cooooow…

I have granular voice control of Netflix through echo by using smartthings and harmony. Works fine. Basically any button on the Harmony remote that can be added to harmony activity as a step can then be initiated from an echo voice command. So I have pause, Play after pause, exit, etc. Plus just “Alexa, turn on Netflix.” All hands-free. :sunglasses:

One can never have too many smart buttons…

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You’re running Netflix off of the smart TV though correct? If someone has a Apple TV or android to be this integration is not possible because smart things can call up an app from one of those devices .

I’m not sure I understand the question, but my TV is 10 years old and definitely not smart. I use Roku as the streaming device. I have a harmony activity that starts Netflix on the Roku, just like you could start a particular channel on the TV. And with the new Harmony Red skill I have full granular Echo control for start, pause, play, and volume up or down. But with the new skill I don’t have fast forward or rewind, just skip forward (30 seconds) or skip back (30 seconds). But I like it, it’s a lot more elegant than what I had before. :sunglasses:

I don’t have a Roku so how does Harmony know how to launch the Netflix app on the Roku? Is it a setting on the remote that runs the activity?

Roku has “channels” and Netflix is one of them. So as soon as you add the Roku to harmony, Netflix shows up on the list of Roku “channels” just like when you add your channel set top box to harmony you get the list of all the channels you can access. It’s very straightforward. :sunglasses:

It’s up to the streaming Device to expose the channels to harmony.

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Well thats pretty cool. I didn’t know that.

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I was able to solve my setup with AndroidTV. So now I can launch an app via my PC and Harmony and AndroidTV device.

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