Snacking and movies go together like butter and popcorn. When you go to the theater, a concession stand filled with goodies awaits you, and you can match your snack to your flick, if you choose — grab some Sour Patch Kids, because they sort of resemble the characters from Inside Out, for example. Chilflix is sort of that idea in reverse, only it will recommend a Netflix movie or show based on whether you’re grabbing something for breakfast or late at night.
The magnet isn’t smart enough to tell what you’re eating, so it won’t recommend The Stuff if you’re having yogurt or Canadian Bacon if your breakfast is a little meatier. Instead, it uses a light sensor to tell when the fridge is open and makes its suggestions depending on the time of day. The Chillfix houses an Arduino and has an LED display that shows off the movie’s title.
As part of the GE Firstbuild “Think Inside the Icebox” Hackathon held in mid-June, David Choi, Steve Gong, Lance Jordan, Kaitlin Till-Landry, and Nick Hiltner were making a prototype for FirstBuild’s ChillHub smart refrigerator. The team wrote a script to find movie titles based on genre and 3D printed the housings for the screen, Arduino, and sensor.
The Wi-Fi connected fridge scans themoviedb.org for recommendations. “Between midnight and 4:00 a.m., Chilflix is making comedy, drama, and adventure movie recommendations, and between 5:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., Chilflix is making science fiction, horror and thriller recommendations,” the team tells PSFK. Obviously this is in its earliest prototype phase, but they hope later versions would let users set their own parameters.
The team also made some hand-picked selections for movie-and-food pairings, like popsicles for Wet Hot American Summer and burgers for Dude, Where’s My Car. May we humbly suggest green Jell-O and Troll 2?
