8 ms·

I have an extremely similar setup for my 3yr old. He has his NFC cards and select from stuff we find suitable. The TV comes on, one episode runs, TV goes off.

by maweki 2y ago

I have an extremely similar setup for my 3yr old. He has his NFC cards and select from stuff we find suitable. The TV comes on, one episode runs, TV goes off. He's not fighting over the remote and he has agency. And he's certainly not stumbling his way through YouTube on a tablet. No ads. Very nice for him. It's not yet necessary to track his usage. But I'm well prepared for it. Home Assistant works very well for these cases. I'm sad that Netflix&Co. do not publicize their urls/intents/etc. for smart TVs. I'd be happy to call an episode directly. This setup therefore needs to run through my own media server and that's why I sometimes have to resort to pirate-y means, even though I have licenses to watch it.

A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
I am slowly preparing myself, but the usage tracking made me wonder. What are you planning to do?
- maweki 2y ago
  So whenever the card is held to the reader a script starts and plays the media and shuts down the TV after the episode has run. It's easy enough to measure the accumulated script runtime and disable the reader once a daily allowance has been reached. Though I am not a fan of an allowance like that. Nevertheless, tracking the script runtime is easy enough. It's a family TV, but a private TV can easily be tracked via power consumption. Then you can track any usage and help managing consumption.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    Do you have episode run time just baked into each script or does it track via some other HA event to know when to turn off?
    - maweki 2y ago
      As I only play a single media file every time the script waits for the player going from "playing" to "stopped".
squeed 2y ago
I, too, built almost the same thing for my kids. It plays music, using Spotify, Chromecast, and a whole lot of virtual duct-tape via HomeAssistant. There is also an NFC tag that will turn off all the lights and turn on a disco ball :-).
- ramses0 2y ago
  Emergency Party Button strikes again! https://youtu.be/nZIfIzNW9xM https://youtu.be/nZIfIzNW9xM
- fivestones 2y ago
  How did you get Spotify to play? Are you using an official Spotify client? Casting Spotify via code/home assistant somehow? When I tried to do something similar (was trying to run a cron job to cast a particular playlist from Spotify to play on my chromecast audio/speakers every morning) maybe 8 years ago I couldn’t figure out how. Maybe it’s easier now?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
michaelmior 2y ago
> I'm sad that Netflix&Co. do not publicize their urls/intents/etc. for smart TVs. I'd be happy to call an episode directly. I haven't really tried this myself, but this Stack Overflow question seems to have found a solution[0]. Since you're already using Home Assistant, you might want to check out the Google Cast integration[1] although Netflix doesn't currently seem to have a documented solution. [0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18217559/launching-android-netflix-app-and-passing-video-id https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18217559/launching-andro... [1] https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/cast/ https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/cast/
richardlblair 2y ago
> The TV comes on, one episode runs, TV goes off. I'm curious how you track that? I don't have HA connected to plex yet, but I will. I suppose there might be an event when the 'track' changes?
- maweki 2y ago
  I play the single media file. Once the player is in "idle" or "stopped" instead of "playing" or "paused" the TV is turned off.
JAlexoid 2y ago
> I'm sad that Netflix&Co. do not publicize their urls/intents/etc. for smart TVs. I'd be happy to call an episode directly. That is an intentional marketing move. If you bypass the loading screen, you're also bypassing advertising for their content. It's in Netflix's interest for you to be aware of their new releases or suggestions. They want you to see the loading screen. The last thing they want is for you to start thinking that paying them is no longer worth the value.
ClumsyPilot 2y ago
This is a really cool project, but also way beyond the skills of an average person. I don’t know If I am becoming old fashioned, but I feel things were simpler when I was a kid, we had DVD player and we would come over to a friends house and watch a movie. We even found someone’s porn collection! I feel this issue is endemic through all of society - you have to spend more and more of your IQ points figuring out basic shit, and eventually it’s gets too much and you have no IQ points left to figure out big questions in life
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Is it not expected for people (or generations) to learn new things (and not learn obsolete things)? My kids learned how to navigate Apple TV and the Apple TV remote at age 3 to go to Infuse or PBS kids app. And I tell them to turn off the TV after x episode of y time limit, and they know how to do that.
  - pempem 2y ago
    I think this ignores that marketing is essentially insidious. The goal is to get you to do more of x. We spend a lot of life building up the mental tools and energy and math skills to understand whether we actually want to do x or whether someone has simply suggested it very strongly. Asking a 3 year old to develop that mental faculty just because we are a new generation learning new things feels incorrect.
  - ClumsyPilot 2y ago
    > Is it not expected for people (or generations) to learn new things If they are useful, and's an improvement, sure But we just enshittified an experience that used to be good, and now have to ‘learn’ to cope with it
    - lotsofpulp 2y ago
      I beg to differ. I prefer being able to search and select and instantly watch whatever I (or the kids) want (due to high reliability of broadband internet), over transporting physical media back and forth from a store or library and putting it into a dedicated machine for it. I specifically recall how annoying it was to change the input on a TV because for some reason, manufacturers didn’t put that button on TVs or all remotes. If my 3 year olds can learn to navigate tvOS to the right app or infuse library and pick the Bluey episode they want, I feel like it’s a pretty good sign of things not being shitty.
hinkley 2y ago
Is there a product opportunity here? What are the risks?
- adamrezich 2y ago
  Licensing.
  - hinkley 2y ago
    Of what? I wouldn’t presume doing a Spotify here but linking to existing services or just your movie library. The movie poster art?

by maweki 2y ago

A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago

I am slowly preparing myself, but the usage tracking made me wonder. What are you planning to do?

maweki 2y ago
So whenever the card is held to the reader a script starts and plays the media and shuts down the TV after the episode has run. It's easy enough to measure the accumulated script runtime and disable the reader once a daily allowance has been reached. Though I am not a fan of an allowance like that. Nevertheless, tracking the script runtime is easy enough. It's a family TV, but a private TV can easily be tracked via power consumption. Then you can track any usage and help managing consumption.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  Do you have episode run time just baked into each script or does it track via some other HA event to know when to turn off?
  - maweki 2y ago
    As I only play a single media file every time the script waits for the player going from "playing" to "stopped".

squeed 2y ago

I, too, built almost the same thing for my kids. It plays music, using Spotify, Chromecast, and a whole lot of virtual duct-tape via HomeAssistant. There is also an NFC tag that will turn off all the lights and turn on a disco ball :-).

ramses0 2y ago
Emergency Party Button strikes again! https://youtu.be/nZIfIzNW9xM https://youtu.be/nZIfIzNW9xM
fivestones 2y ago
How did you get Spotify to play? Are you using an official Spotify client? Casting Spotify via code/home assistant somehow? When I tried to do something similar (was trying to run a cron job to cast a particular playlist from Spotify to play on my chromecast audio/speakers every morning) maybe 8 years ago I couldn’t figure out how. Maybe it’s easier now?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

michaelmior 2y ago

> I'm sad that Netflix&Co. do not publicize their urls/intents/etc. for smart TVs. I'd be happy to call an episode directly. I haven't really tried this myself, but this Stack Overflow question seems to have found a solution[0]. Since you're already using Home Assistant, you might want to check out the Google Cast integration[1] although Netflix doesn't currently seem to have a documented solution. [0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18217559/launching-android-netflix-app-and-passing-video-id https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18217559/launching-andro... [1] https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/cast/ https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/cast/

richardlblair 2y ago

> The TV comes on, one episode runs, TV goes off. I'm curious how you track that? I don't have HA connected to plex yet, but I will. I suppose there might be an event when the 'track' changes?

maweki 2y ago
I play the single media file. Once the player is in "idle" or "stopped" instead of "playing" or "paused" the TV is turned off.

JAlexoid 2y ago

> I'm sad that Netflix&Co. do not publicize their urls/intents/etc. for smart TVs. I'd be happy to call an episode directly. That is an intentional marketing move. If you bypass the loading screen, you're also bypassing advertising for their content. It's in Netflix's interest for you to be aware of their new releases or suggestions. They want you to see the loading screen. The last thing they want is for you to start thinking that paying them is no longer worth the value.

ClumsyPilot 2y ago

This is a really cool project, but also way beyond the skills of an average person. I don’t know If I am becoming old fashioned, but I feel things were simpler when I was a kid, we had DVD player and we would come over to a friends house and watch a movie. We even found someone’s porn collection! I feel this issue is endemic through all of society - you have to spend more and more of your IQ points figuring out basic shit, and eventually it’s gets too much and you have no IQ points left to figure out big questions in life

lotsofpulp 2y ago
Is it not expected for people (or generations) to learn new things (and not learn obsolete things)? My kids learned how to navigate Apple TV and the Apple TV remote at age 3 to go to Infuse or PBS kids app. And I tell them to turn off the TV after x episode of y time limit, and they know how to do that.
- pempem 2y ago
  I think this ignores that marketing is essentially insidious. The goal is to get you to do more of x. We spend a lot of life building up the mental tools and energy and math skills to understand whether we actually want to do x or whether someone has simply suggested it very strongly. Asking a 3 year old to develop that mental faculty just because we are a new generation learning new things feels incorrect.
- ClumsyPilot 2y ago
  > Is it not expected for people (or generations) to learn new things If they are useful, and's an improvement, sure But we just enshittified an experience that used to be good, and now have to ‘learn’ to cope with it
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    I beg to differ. I prefer being able to search and select and instantly watch whatever I (or the kids) want (due to high reliability of broadband internet), over transporting physical media back and forth from a store or library and putting it into a dedicated machine for it. I specifically recall how annoying it was to change the input on a TV because for some reason, manufacturers didn’t put that button on TVs or all remotes. If my 3 year olds can learn to navigate tvOS to the right app or infuse library and pick the Bluey episode they want, I feel like it’s a pretty good sign of things not being shitty.

hinkley 2y ago

Is there a product opportunity here? What are the risks?

adamrezich 2y ago
Licensing.
- hinkley 2y ago
  Of what? I wouldn’t presume doing a Spotify here but linking to existing services or just your movie library. The movie poster art?