This hacked exercise bike will stop streaming Netflix if you don’t pedal fast enough

An engineering student has created a novel way to inspire reluctant exercisers to keep moving – hacking an exercise bike so Netflix pauses if you stop pedalling.

Dublin Institute of Technology student Ronan Byrne used an Arduino computer kit to connect up his exercise bike with his laptop, while tracking the speed at which he was pedalling.

Byrne calls the idea “exercise-powered entertainment” and, as well as posting about it on his Roboro blog and uploading a video demonstration to YouTube, has uploaded instructions on how to build the system, so others can create their own.

According to the instructions, the system can even be used with other streaming services with a few tweaks to the program.