Last build: 02.09.2026 18:12
Home Clouds Blog (RSS)First of all: I got it working! But let’s take it one step at a time. The setup is as follows:
But the road to get there was long and rocky. Since there is no official Netflix app for Linux, the first step was to create a web app in Bigscreen that loads www.netflix.com. It works pretty well so far, but can only be controlled with a mouse. The Orbsmart does have a gyro mouse, but it’s no fun.
Other options included Kodi, but the Netflix add-on hasn’t worked for years. Besides, I didn’t want an extra layer between Bigscreen and Netflix.
Someone on IRC recommended Waydroid to me. You can control it with Orbsmart, but you really don’t want to do that.
I then came across two Chrome extensions that are supposed to add keyboard navigation to Netflix: this one and this one. Neither of them works.
At that point, I was actually about to give up out of frustration, but just for fun, I checked the Firefox Add-ons Store to see if there was anything there. And it turns out there is. And: it just works!!!
The rest was just a small matter. Create a desktop file:
/usr/share/applications/netflix.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Netflix
Comment=Netflix
Exec=firefox --kiosk https://www.netflix.com
Icon=/usr/share/icons/netflix.png
Terminal=false
Categories=AudioVideo;Player;Video;
Don’t forget to create a /usr/share/icons/netflix.png file. There are plenty of them online, so I won’t go into detail about that here.
Although you can only log in to Netflix using a keyboard and mouse, you only need to do this once — you won’t have to do it again afterward. You can then select profiles using just the remote control.
And there it is in the Bigscreen Apps Menu: a remote controlable Netflix app for Bigscreen!
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