Netflix Engineers Have Built A ‘Binge Mode’ For Obsessive TV Watchers

Netflix has changed many things, but the big one is how we watch TV. We’re binge-watching maniacs, and that’s not going away, no matter what TV executives and showrunners feel. But, as any binge watcher can tell you, in some cases you can lose a whole day without realizing it. So Netflix’s engineers came up with a new way to track your binge watching, and to know how much time you’ve got left.

The mode in question, as you can see above, was built for Netflix’s Hack Day, where the site’s engineers fiddle around to show off or pitch neat ideas. The ‘binge mode’ creates a progress with little bars and bubbles. Each bubble is an episode; as you blow through episodes, the bar fills, and the timer next to the episode ticks down to the end of the run. So yes, you will be able to figure out exactly how many episodes you can watch until you have to get up and do something so people don’t think you’re dead.

This is just a prototype for now, as part of Netflix’s hack day. But we can see it being useful to enable, either when you’re in the grip of a full binge, or to maybe snap yourself out of one. After all, “There are only so many episodes of TV you can watch in a single day,” said no one who has ever seen Breaking Bad.

(via The Verge)

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