This Raspberry Pi-Powered Magic Mirror Can Be Set Up With One Line of Code

This Raspberry Pi-Powered Magic Mirror Can Be Set Up With One Line of Code

We’ve seen a few different magic mirror projects using a Raspberry Pi, but in the newest issue of MagPi they’ve put together what might as well be the definitive magic mirror guide as it’s easily the simplest one to make for yourself.

Like any of these magic mirror projects, the most difficult part is the actual construction. To make this, you’ll need to deconstruct an old monitor or TV, build a wooden frame around it, cram a Raspberry Pi inside that, then mount a two-way mirror over it.

The good news is that once you get past the difficulty of assembling the mirror, MagPi has made it so you can install all the software you need to actually run this on a Raspberry Pi with a single line of code. Once its installed, the Pi powers a dashboard that includes the date, temperature, calendar, a news feed, and a message. You can then customize that info with your own data, or better yet, install a third-party module like one that displays the newest XKCD comic or an RSS feed. This is probably as simple as it’s going to get to make your own magic mirror, so if you’ve been thinking about doing it, do it now.

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How to build Raspberry Pi-powered smart mirror at home

Over the past few years, smart mirrors have been gaining attention on the internet. Plus, few companies have also started selling smart mirrors for tech-savvy consumers. However, if you’re a proficient DIYer, you can surely try making a Raspberry Pi-powered smart mirror that displays your daily schedules, weather, clock and other important updates.

The DIY smart mirror is completely customizable, hence you can even write your own codes to add any desired applications. Below is the video showing how to make a smart mirror integrated with basic applications to keep you updated while you’re getting ready for work every morning.

The mirror consists of a wooden frame and a low profile monitor, sandwiching the acrylic sheet to the back of the frame. After this step, some basic application codes need to be loaded on the Raspberry Pi and your smart mirror is all ready to be mounted on a wall or move around wherever you go.

Here’s another video showing how you could add artificial intelligence to the mirror. Although AI processing is too heavy for Raspberry Pi, but you can learn how to set it up on a Mac. The guide on how to set it up on Mac is on GitHub.

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Behind Microsoft's magic mirror: Raspberry Pi, AI, Windows IoT plus Azure

Here's a look at Microsoft's magic mirror on a grand scale.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft wants you to tap Azure and its artificial intelligence to create your own networked magic mirror.

Instead of reaching for the phone when you're rushing to prepare for work in the morning, Microsoft would have you simply look into the magic mirror for key details to help get the day started, such as stock prices, weather and traffic information.

Microsoft revealed its take on the magic mirror concept at this year's Build conference, but has now provided more details about how people can build their own magic mirror relatively cheaply and personalize the experience with Microsoft services.

Microsoft's magic mirror isn't the first, but the company is using its take on the concept to show off how its AI services under Microsoft Cognitive Services and the Azure cloud can evolve the technology, which it does by adding facial recognition and then personalizing the information displayed once a user has been authenticated.

As Microsoft notes in a blogpost, the mirror is designed for the person who is in a "time crunch" and wants updates without being overloaded with information. For Raspberry Pi builders, Microsoft hopes its mirror gets them thinking about how to personalize tech.

Building the mirror itself appears to be a fairly simple set-up. Microsoft's instructions are similar to those previously provided by other Raspberry Pi builders. Microsoft lists its own bill of materials on GitHub, with additional instructions and resources for making the mirror smarter.

On the hardware side, the mirror relies on two-way, mirrored acrylic sheets, like the mirrors seen in TV police interrogations. These sheets are attached to the front of a medicine cabinet.

Behind them sits a 23.6-inch LED-lit screen, which Microsoft sets to a high contrast ratio of pure white on pure black, so that it can be read through the mirror. There's also a camera at the top of the mirror for facial recognition and a Raspberry Pi 3 running Windows IoT Core.

Microsoft built Hosted Web App using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which it converted into a Universal Windows app to run on the Windows-powered Raspberry Pi. On the backend, the service relies on NodeJS and MongoDB hosted on Azure.

The web app is hosted in Azure and to add personalization it connects up with Microsoft Cognitive Services via the Face API.

Microsoft Cognitive Services aims to help developers build tech such as emotion and video detection, facial and vision recognition, and speech and language understanding into their apps.

To enable personalization, Microsoft's set-up requires users to first create a profile and register their face by taking a selfie, which is then sent to Cognitive Services. This process generates a unique identifier, which is stored in MongoDB.

Once that identifier is established, the user can stand in front of the magic mirror and have it identify the individual, which in turn allows the mirror to display the user's preferred information.

If a person who hasn't set up a profile stands in front of the mirror, the mirror won't display the information. Multiple users can be established, allowing the mirror to display the information preferences of each of a group of household members, depending on who is in front of the mirror.