To create our magic mirror, we will create a ‘sandwich’ of the frame, a piece of observation mirror acrylic, and the screen. This can be built in an afternoon and is a great way to find out whether you want to take it to the next step and get working on something a bit bigger. In this tutorial, we’ll assemble a simple magic mirror using off-the-shelf parts. Although the results are undoubtedly impressive, it can make the hobby look a little daunting to the beginner, especially if you don’t have access to the necessary equipment to build a custom frame. There have been some impressive magic mirror projects as makers around the globe challenge each other to improve on previous designs. Would you like a magic mirror, but don’t fancy all that carpentry? Here’s a first project to ease you in without having to reach for the band-sawĪ Raspberry Pi Zero would seem ideal for this project, but MagicMirror2 is incompatible with that model and the original Raspberry Pi 1. It’s no wonder it won the number one slot in our best projects feature for The MagPi issue 50. Best of all, you can expand the capabilities of your mirror through the hundreds of community plug-ins available and, if you wish, you can write your own. This modular system takes away all the programming and design pain. Fortunately, the team at MagicMirror2, headed by Michael Teeuw (see The MagPi issue 54), have not only compiled tutorials and fostered a great community, they’ve also built their own open-source application. Let’s take a look at one of these makers and then have a go at building our own mirror.Ĭreating a good magic mirror requires experience in many disciplines including carpentry, electronics, programming, and graphic design. Although they come across as advanced builds, the community behind the projects have made significant advances in making magic mirrors accessible to all. The information displayed is typically what you need as you’re preparing to leave the house: weather, news headlines, and transit information. Initially created by combining old laptops and semi-reflective observation glass, they appear as normal mirrors but with text and images that appear to float in mid-air. Motion Sensing: Using a PIR sensor for your Raspberry Pi you can have your display turn on only when there is someone in the room.Magic mirrors have to be one of the most popular projects out there. If you use a smart phone with Google Assistant already installed this should work out of the box. For this you will need to add a USB microphone and USB speaker. Voice Control: Some people have used their Raspberry Pi driven smart mirrors to add Alexa and voice controls. This can be anything from baseboard trim, to a picture frame, to using an existing medicine cabinet.Ĥ) Finally you will download one of the Android apps shown below and customize it for your needs. Option 1) For a full mirror display, a computer monitor in combination with a small computer (Typically a Raspberry Pi (a kit with power cord starts at $42)) would be a good optionįor smaller displays or where you only want part of the mirror to display information a cheap Android Tablet or one of your old smartphones will do the trick.ģ) An enclosure to hold the glass and display you choose. Would you like to have the information take up the entire mirror or just a small section? This is really driven by how large of a display you would like. Note: Some people have complained about the final finish using this.Ģ) Something to run the display on. Acrylic: A cheaper 1-3 mm Acrylic two way mirror starting at $27 for a 12"x24" piece. Glass: 1/4" thick two way mirror glass - starting at $89.99 for a 12"x24" piece To build your own smart mirror, you will need some hardware:ġ) A Glass or Acrylic two-way mirror where one side reflects light and has the appearance of a mirror and the other transmits light through it. If he needs to know something that’s not in one of the widgets, the mirror also can access Android’s built-in voice search features.īraun hasn’t yet posted a full how-to with the complete bill of materials, but we estimate a setup like this would cost upwards of $500, with the monitor and the glass as the main expenses. Like the examples below, there’s no touchscreen capability - and who would want all those fingerprints greasing up the mirror anyway? - but Braun’s idea was to create a UI that presents a quick-glance overview of information and doesn’t require much interaction. The screen shows widgets like time, weather and headlines, and Braun says it can be expanded to include basically anything that has a Google Now card. It’s built from a super-thin Asus monitor behind two-way glass, with a Fire TV HDMI streaming stick running a custom Android application. One of the slickest-looking examples was just posted earlier this month by Google employee Max Braun.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |