It sounds like something out of the Onion, but apparently it’s real: TV manufacturers have agreed to add a Netflix button to their remote controls. From Social Times:
As if Netflix hadn’t already made watching movies easy enough. First they eliminated the process of leaving your property to rent a new movie — just go to the mailbox and pick up your DVD. Next they made it so you didn’t have to leave the room — watch instantly streamed movies online. Now Netflix has put a button on your remote, so that instead of having to switch from the TV remote to the Blu-ray or Roku remote, the viewer can simply press the big red button that says Netflix.
Netflix announced today, January 4, that most of the world’s largest remote manufactures have agreed to add a Netflix button to their latest models of remotes. The Netflix button will allow viewers to have one click access to their instant queue. The manufactures that have agreed to produce remotes with a Netflix button by this spring include: Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, Best Buy’s brand Dynex, Haier, as well as Memorex.
This is only for the U.S. and Canada, presumably, but can a LoveFilm button for the U.K. be far behind?
I love the idea… it really has been an enormous chore to flip my TV over to the HTML1 input where my Roku box lives in order to watch Netflix with the primitive level of technology I’ve been forced to contend with. And surely this is only the beginning: Imagine how much more useful our TV remotes could be!
What button would you add to your TV remote control? Or your DVD remote, cable-box remote — and entertainment remote.
I’d love one that flips right past Fox News… or, indeed, any channel I don’t want to even accidentally expose my brain too. My cable remote has a “favorite channel” feature, but it would be much easier if there were a “hated channel” option.
You?
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