For those who’ve always wanted to work out with help from Terry Crews or the Queen of England, the world is about to get a lot more benevolent.
Last week Netflix released a guide that teaches viewers how to create their own personal trainers, using the voices of characters from its shows.
There are 14 voice options, divided by motivation type—Tough Love, Comic Relief, Positive Reinforcement. Tough Love includes Terry Crews from Ultimate Beastmaster and Red Reznikov from Orange Is the New Black (“What do you want, a medal?” she snarls). Comic Relief features Titus Andromedon from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and sweet Dustin Henderson from Stranger Things, among others. Positive Reinforcement boasts Kimmy herself, OITNB’s Taystee, and Queen Elizabeth II from The Crown.
The voices can motivate you before, during or after a workout. You can also send motivation to friends. If you’re watching Netflix (or listening to music) while working out, the “coach” can pause it every time you stop moving or slide behind your desired pace. (So don’t fall off the treadmill.)
Sound fun? It looks fun. Sadly, this isn’t something you can buy whole. You really do have to make it yourself … and it takes some degree of technical comfort to do it.
Part of Netflix’s “Make It” collection of “DIY projects inspired by ideas from our fans and our engineers,” you’ll need about 40 items to complete the unit, which is really bloody serious: It includes an accelerometer, a microcontroller, Bluetooth module, charging circuit and more.
Hope you’ve got a soldering iron handy, because yes, you will need that, too. But look how gorgeous it is once complete!
If this seems like a lot to handle in one go, that’s OK. Netflix’s past forays into makerdom have included knit-’em-yourself socks that pause shows when you fall asleep, and the Netflix Switch, a magic button that dims lights, silences phones, orders your favorite takeout and sets your TV to Netflix.
It may well be that the personal trainer concept arrived as a response to the success of the latter. Really, why leave the house again, ever?
