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Show HN: Make a programmable mirror
- zekenie 11y agoI wonder how this would work with the new Raspberry Pi display
- IkmoIkmo 11y agoIt'd just be an easier version of this http://michaelteeuw.nl/post/111886383522/magic-mirrors-around-the-world http://michaelteeuw.nl/post/111886383522/magic-mirrors-aroun...
- nkozyra 11y agoThe touchscreen device? Probably not that well, certainly not better than a smaller monitor/display.
- knowaveragejoe 11y agoI wish this went into a bit more detail about working with the mirror itself. Do you actually need a 2-way mirror? Or can you simply use something with that coating on one side?
- hannahmitt 11y agoSome mirrors may have a thin enough back coating for light to shine through, but the two-way is ideal.
- IanCal 11y agoI'm not too sure what you're asking, but a two way mirror is just a surface that reflects some light and lets some through. It's a very thin metallic coating on one side of something transparent.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoI wonder if humidity and steam would be a problem if this was done in a bathroom.
- asm 11y agoWe used construction paper to black out the back around the tablet. My guess is that the paper wouldn't like the humidity but the rest would be fine. Perhaps you could swap in some black plastic material that would work with spray adhesive.
- bennettfeely 11y agoWouldn't a coating of black spray paint work just fine?
- icebraining 11y agoMy Nexus 7 was completely submerged in running water, and only had a couple of drops inside the case - it didn't even shut off.
- servercobra 11y agoI'm guessing this is based off [1] which uses a normal monitor and a Raspberry Pi. This one looks much quicker and simpler than [1], but what if you need to do anything to the tablet (updates, new app, etc)? Remove it and re-adhesive? Personally, I've been working on doing the same with an RPi and Hover so I can wave my hand in front of the mirror to swipe to new screens/info. [1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/magic-mirror/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/magic-mirror/
- hannahmitt 11y agoThe other end of the USB cable and tinkering through that is usually enough. But definitely nice to have non-permanent adhesive.
- kevan 11y agoYou can find adhesive velcro at craft stores, it would probably be a pretty good option if you need to remove it occasionally.
- mikeyouse 11y agoI used these recently to hang a ~20lb whiteboard -- They're incredibly sturdy: http://www.command.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/NACommand/Command/Products/Catalog/~/Command-Large-Picture-Hanging-Strips?N=5924736+3294529207+3294737318&rt=rud http://www.command.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/NACommand/Command...
- michaelmior 11y agoOr use something like AirDroid[0] (to interact with the tablet) [0] https://www.airdroid.com/ https://www.airdroid.com/
- Linell 11y agoHow far have you gotten on your project? The idea of a mirror I could wave at to change the information display on is pretty tempting.
- 11y ago
- davnicwil 11y agoWhat an absolutely awesome idea. I love things like this that just blend software and information into the physical environment seamlessly. I see stuff like this and just think, yeah, now we're living in the future :-D Kind of reminds you how cumbersome and inappropriate it can be to have to pull out a dedicated black slab of glass to access all your information. The future (at least the one I want) without a doubt is information distributed throughout and blended with the rest of the 'physical' environment so it can be accessed in a truly interactive, head-up manner, not always funnelled and filtered through a singular device - be that VR, AR, or just a load of nicely designed physical interfaces like this one.
- phkahler 11y agoYou may also be interested in Jasper: http://jasperproject.github.io/documentation/ http://jasperproject.github.io/documentation/ So you can do voice activated mirrors.
- comrh 11y agoThey even specify using a Raspberry Pi in their documentation. I must think of a way to use this.
- jsingleton 11y agoI believe the term for things like this is an 'information radiator'. The benefit of ambient displays is they're always on so you don't need to seek any information out. It's just there. They're quite popular in the agile community. Digital signage and wallboards everywhere. The downside is you can become conditioned to them and not notice things over time. This is quite old but sums is up: https://www.atlassian.com/wallboards/information-radiators.jsp https://www.atlassian.com/wallboards/information-radiators.j...
- pluma 11y agoYou mean like a wall clock?
- Kiro 11y agoThis needs a Kickstarter. I would back it immediately.
- ComteDeLaFere 11y agoSeconded.
- Amorymeltzer 11y agoThirded. As someone said elsewhere, this is one of those "okay wow the future is here" things. This, more than a hover car, would do the trick. Major quality of life improvement.
- robertfw 11y agoI think if this is considered a major quality of life improvement, you might be measuring the wrong metrics
- icebraining 11y agoOr maybe they already have the important stuff covered?
- javajosh 11y agoEven so, this would count as a minor life improvement for most people, at best.
- Amorymeltzer 11y agoThis is a mirror that, from only the pictures shown: - Tells you the date and time - Tells you the weather (and suggestions!) - Tells you the temperature - Can list your to-do list and major reminders - Shows (personalized!) stock market updates - Shows xkcd - Is a mirror It could clearly do so much more, but on a typical weekday morning before work that's an easy, efficient way to get a number of morning "tasks" done. Big deal to me!
- swamp40 11y agoLooks perfect for daily affirmations. "Good morning, Dave. MY, you look handsome today!"
- mintyfresh 11y ago"You're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, people like you!"
- linkydinkandyou 11y ago"Who's the fairest one of all?" That's the application I'd like to see on one of these.
- aakilfernandes 11y agoPretty cool. I'd want to try this out on a kindle paperwhite and see if it would work. How obvious is the rectangle of light? I can't see it at all in the first pic, but can make it out a little in the last pic
- asm 11y agoHi, I helped hannahmitt make the mirror. The rectangle of light isn't noticeable at all in normal light if you adjust the brightness on the tablet well. In a dark room it can be noticeable, though.
- maaaats 11y agoAn OLED screen could solve this, having no light where the screen is black.
- steckerbrett 11y agoOLED have terrible burn in though, they don't like being turned on for long lengths of time.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoSomeone above suggested adding a motion sensor, so that it would only turn on when you were in front of it.
- pwnna 11y agoThis is really cool! Although the title could be better, initially I thought this is talking about mirrors that can be programmed to adjust its properties (like tilt, curvature), much like those fancy telescope mirrors, although I'm unable to find a link now.
- Mindless2112 11y agoThere's been research [1] into making programmable thin-film membrane mirrors [2] using the piezoelectric effect. [1] http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/2004/041267.pdf http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/2004/04126... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_mirror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_mirror
- roberdam 11y agokind of this one http://preorderlucy.com/ http://preorderlucy.com/
- epalmer 11y agoThis is a project I could get into. Full Maker on. I like the details provided and the images. I'm thinking about using some other display than android phone since I don't have one.
- IkmoIkmo 11y agohttp://michaelteeuw.nl/post/111886383522/magic-mirrors-around-the-world http://michaelteeuw.nl/post/111886383522/magic-mirrors-aroun...
- mholt 11y agoThis is way more affordable than the same thing I saw at Harrod's for like $10,000. Awesome project! Can't wait to try this.
- natebleker 11y agoIt would be really cool to add facial recognition at like 0.5hz to the phone so that it only turns the screen on when you're looking at it. Or alternatively customize the content based on who's present in front of the mirror.
- artmageddon 11y agoMaybe add a motion sensor to it?
- irl_zebra 11y agoMotion sensing seems like a better solution to me. I can imagine looking from diagonally across the room wanting a quick glance at the current temp outside and it not showing up because it doesn't see my face.
- Raphmedia 11y agoPerhaps a light sensor? You are not going to use your mirror in a dark room. Unless you want the display to show up in the dark, but personally I wouldn't want that.
- artmageddon 11y agoRight, but you may not want the mirror to always be on just because you're standing out of it's viewing angle in the same room at 11PM when the moon is out. Maybe a combination of light and motion sensors..?
- CydeWeys 11y agoThat wouldn't work during the day if your bathroom has a window (it'd be on all day). I think the simplest way to do it would be to tie it in directly to your light switch. (Note that the light switch wouldn't be controlling power to the Android device, it would merely be a data signal determining whether the display should be on.)
- 11y ago
- rmxt 11y agoThis is really neat, but not having a spare Android tablet lying around, I'm left wondering: is there any cost-effective way to magnify a small screen, say that of a SGS3, to a larger size? Anyone have any tricks of light, like angled mirrors or prisms, up their sleeves to achieve such an effect in a thin depth? I don't get the impression that resolution is all that important if all it's going to be used for is a few lines of monochrome text and symbols.
- matthiasb 11y agoIf you have a spare screen, this is a nice low cost alternative: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/magic-mirror/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/magic-mirror/
- rmxt 11y agoThanks. Any suggestions for a purchasable low-cost, low-power, low-medium resolution, largish screen? EDIT: Self-suggestion : https://www.adafruit.com/products/1287... https://www.adafruit.com/products/1287.... and the linked to tutorial has some suggestions.
- harpastum 11y agoYou can get refurbished 17" monitors from Newegg for about $50: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824195011 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824195... If you're using an rPi and don't want to get an adapter, the cheapest HDMI-input display is this 20" 1600x900px for $90 new: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824112027 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824112...
- eflowers 11y agoThat weather readout would look great with some slick weather icons: https://erikflowers.github.io/weather-icons/ https://erikflowers.github.io/weather-icons/
- level 11y agoI'm using these for my smart mirror project, and tied them by index to the Yahoo Weather API.[1][2] There isn't a perfect one-to-one relationship between the API codes and the icons, but it's pretty close. My one complaint about the icons is that they flow outside of the boundaries of what you'd expect them to be contained in, which can lead to some accidental overlap if you aren't careful with your margins. [1] https://github.com/alaycock/SmartMirror/blob/master/public/js/data.js https://github.com/alaycock/SmartMirror/blob/master/public/j... [2] https://developer.yahoo.com/weather/documentation.html#codes https://developer.yahoo.com/weather/documentation.html#codes
- eflowers 11y agoI have updated these quite a bit, the bounding boxes are fixed and there are various API mapping a including yahoo. Check it out.
- level 11y agoThanks for the reply! I'll take a look at it soon, I'll definitely grab these again. I think the version I used was from July, so it's definitely outdated.
- thehooker 11y agoThis is awesome! It would be nice if this mirror could sync with your main device using wi-fi. So it would always be up-to-date with your stock options, birthdays and stuff like this.
- kevinaloys 11y agoThis is absolutely fan fucking tastic!!
- suyash 11y agoAsk HN : Absolutely the coolest thing I've seen in a while. Can someone explain, how the phone screen is being displayed in the mirror? It is behind the mirror, it's not in front of it? Since the mirror won't understand touch, there is no touch based control and one needs to pull the phone out to change app etc right. Thanks
- suyash 11y agoAnswering my own question, secret is in the two way mirror, so no touch and no camera as the other side would reflect back.
- Jtsummers 11y agoYou can update it by remoting into the phone or having it pull down configuration changes from a server periodically.
- icebraining 11y agoOr using a USB or Bluetooth mouse - Android supports them out-of-the-box.
- brunorsini 11y agoAny suggestions for stores similar to Canal Plastic Center in San Francisco?
- oaktowner 11y agoOver the last 25 years I've heard the "Tap Plastics" radio commercial in the Bay Area so many times that the jingle has burned into my brain. But I can't compare them to Canal Plastic Center.
- toby 11y agoYou could try TAP on South Van Ness, they have two-way acrylic mirrors on their website: http://www.tapplastics.com/product/plastics/cut_to_size_plastic/two_way_mirrored_acrylic/558 http://www.tapplastics.com/product/plastics/cut_to_size_plas...
- zten 11y agoI'd suggest finding glass instead of plastic if you can deal with the weight in order to avoid having a distorted reflection. It should also be cheaper -- it looks like they're charging $33 per square foot for 3/16" plastic.
- adanto6840 11y agoNot sure if it's this article or not (wouldn't surprise me), but there's a number of "one way mirror" plastic/acrylic sheets on Amazon, with Prime shipping. But all of the larger, more practical ones are sold out as of a few minutes ago, hah. ;-) Awesome project.
- _xzxj 11y agoOn first glance I thought the mirror said "Wear pants today" as if the mirror should know whether or not my legs will get cold...
- nialo 11y agoLook at the weather report, if [high, expected, min] temperature below X degrees, suggest pants. Simple!
- jgh 11y agoI don't think it's that simple, you should see all the optimists in March in Canada who are wearing shorts when it's about 5C out!
- MrZongle2 11y agoOn first glance I thought the mirror said "Wear pants today".. Good advice on any day, I think.
- mikado 11y agoWe made a similar project last year with voice controller https://www.facebook.com/mcouzinet/videos/10152455989859166/?l=3611472434671373927 https://www.facebook.com/mcouzinet/videos/10152455989859166/...
- swah 11y agoCan the "two way mirror" be created with "reflective window tint" (insulfilm in Brazil) glued onto a transparent acrylic sheet?
- alwaysdoit 11y agoDoes the tablet's touchscreen work through the mirror, or is this read-only? It's still really cool either way.
- codingdave 11y agoI do like this. It is clever. But when I did something similar for my family, which displayed everyone's chores for the day, and any events we had going on, I simply mounted a tablet on the wall of the kitchen, and wrote a web page to display the info.
- nivla 11y agoNice work! I first came across this concept a few years back when someone posted an instructable which I believe he was building a Magic mirror for his daughter [1]. I re-implemented the idea but with a spooky tone, ie. it is framed as a regular mirror in the living room and when a guest stares at it long enough, something spooky jumps into the view. This was done using a VGA monitor, camera and a netbox pc. It was a fun project. If I were to go at it again, I would just use a cheap android tablet solely based on price, simplicity and power consumption. Will also make it useful this time with display of data that interests me than a novelty toy. [1] http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Magic-Mirror/ http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Magic-Mirror/
- jscheel 11y agoI've been working on a voice-controlled one of these. I just got my Raspberry Pi, but am still working on the software side quite a bit. I'm not really having great success with CMU Sphinx's hotword detection.
- ChicagoBoy11 11y agoDoes a service like wit.ai help you out at all?
- jscheel 11y agoHaha, I'm using wit.ai for the actual command processing. But for the activation hotword (to turn on streaming to wit.ai), I'm trying to use Sphinx.
- TsiCClawOfLight 11y agoYou could try blather. It's by Jezra Lickter.
- jscheel 11y agoInteresting, I'll take a look. Thanks!
- mundo 11y agoSuper cool! Looks like a great anniversary present for the missus. I'm comfortable doing android development, but for those that aren't, have you thought of adding some config buttons for setting the birthdays and whatnot and releasing it in the google store?
- maresca 11y agoI have an old nexus I don't use often and would like to attempt this. Anyone know of any good mirror suppliers in the south jersey/philadelphia area?
- joshmn 11y agoLove this idea, but removing the device (if you have to) is what rubs me the wrong way. Anyone have any idea on the implications of mounting the device, say, 3mm away from the mirror? I think that would be about the depth of a case... and if you mount it inside a case, you can remove it seemlessly.
- pierrec 11y agoI wonder if a touchscreen version is doable using the frustrated total internal reflection technique [1]. Relatively cheap projects have been done with that technique, but never with a mirror, AFAIK. It's somewhat different since it requires a sizable box behind the surface and an internal projector instead of the screen. As for turning it into a mirror, it might be as simple as adding a two-way mirror under the Plexiglas pane (or possibly between the pane and the diffuser layer). But this is where experimentation becomes necessary! [1]: http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirsense/ http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirsense/
- knightofmars 11y agoI did some research into two way mirror vendors a while ago to hide my TV and stumbled upon this operation out of Ohio. I never ended up finishing the project and as such never ordered from them so I don't know much about the company. They do have a wide range of two-way mirror options. http://www.twowaymirrors.com/acrylic/ http://www.twowaymirrors.com/acrylic/
- resc1440 11y agoMight want to electrical-tape over the phone's front-facing camera, and maybe even excavate out its microphone. Just In Case.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- huangc10 11y agolooks awesome! is that an iron ring I see?
- hannahmitt 11y agoIt is! UofT Comp Eng.
- andrepd 11y agoGreat idea! It's stunning how this sort of futuristic seeming technology is actually possible using $50 in consumer electronics! But passive display of information is only part of the story. You have the hardware: a microphone and a speech recognition API. Build voice interaction with this. Even simple commands like "Show me the weather tomorrow", or "Show me my calendar" add an amazing new depth to it. I can imagine myself, shaving and idly telling my mirror to show me my appointments today. :)
- Animats 11y agoDecades ago I saw this done for auto rear-view mirrors, at Ford's research lab in Dearborn. Way ahead of its time. If you have to operate electronics in a damp environment, use "Fine-L-Kote" conformal coating on the electronics. Mask all connectors, switches, and the screen face itself, then spray. Inspect with a UV light to see if you missed anything. Most automotive electronics gets a conformal coat, but, annoyingly, most handheld devices do not.
- lazaroclapp 11y agoDoes the device's camera work from behind the one-way-mirror? Specifically, does the device camera work well enough from behind the one-way-mirror to do accurate face recognition? (the idea being that it can display different information for different users and have at least a soft "biometric" privacy lock). Also, would color images be displayable through the one-way mirror or only white will make it intact?
- giancarlostoro 11y agoI believe the device is on the side that you only see your own reflection, but I could be entirely wrong. I base my assumption on the premise you can see the contents of the tablet from your side.
- lazaroclapp 11y agoAs I understand it, one-way mirrors let light pass in both directions. To be used as a "one-way" mirror it relies on the light differential between the two sides. Namely, it will always look like a mirror to the brighter side and like a window from the darker side into the brighter side. So, technically, the "mirror" side is facing you wherever the screen is dark on the other side. When the screen is bright, then the mirror works as a window. The problem is that I am not sure how bright is bright, i.e. would a normal color photograph, displayed against the mirror panel from the other side, be too dark to be seen through? Also, I am not sure of is if it distorts the image in some way to have the mirror panel in between the device's camera and the outside.
- ehlovader 11y agoTwo way mirrors can actually be seen through both sides given the right lighting. Here is more information from MentalFloss https://youtu.be/XKuF1eT1Cqc https://youtu.be/XKuF1eT1Cqc Given that, I am sure the camera could see out, which in a bathroom could be a much creepier feature than if it couldn't.
- hannahmitt 11y agoColor works quite well, the white was purely an aesthetic choice. I haven't tried out the camera, but hypothetically should work.
- jonknee 11y agoYears ago I stayed in a hotel once that had mirrors like this by the elevators. They were displaying the current weather and day's forecast I believe. I've wanted one ever since!
- seangarita 11y agoThis is really cool! I built one of these with Facial Recognition for my Capstone project. http://lookingglass.co http://lookingglass.co
- devonoel 11y agoReally cool idea, but more importantly, why do some people call a one-way mirror a two-way mirror? Its only a mirror on one size.
- itsyogesh 11y agoBecause you can use either side of the glass as a mirror.
- g10r 11y agovery awesome!
- msie 11y agoWould using an iPad Pro be overkill?
- soared 11y agoI did something similar, but used Windows 10 and rainmeter, which lets you place widgets/images on your desktop. https://i.imgur.com/LKxxvVI.jpg https://i.imgur.com/LKxxvVI.jpg reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Rainmeter/comments/3hzy4b/something_a_little_different_smart_mirror_with/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Rainmeter/comments/3hzy4b/something...
- cm2187 11y agoHeavily influenced by Snow White!
- barcoder 11y agoHere's a face tracking version I made a couple of years back: https://vimeo.com/13156714 https://vimeo.com/13156714 It just uses a webcam and detects faces with (the now obsolete) Haarcascading face algorithm.
- toxik 11y agoDid you implement your own Haar wavelet feature cascading classifier?
- userbinator 11y agoA few years ago it was really popular for home entertainment electronics like stereo systems and DVD players to use this trick to make the display appear to be "floating" on a mirrored surface. (Example: http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/07/21/philips_bdp7600_blu-ray.jpg http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/07/21/philips_bdp7600_blu-ray.jpg ) More recently, I've seen people with phones whose screen protector is made out of this material. (Personally, the idea of putting a device with a camera and microphone behind a two-way mirror just feels a bit too much like a telescreen for me.)
- eeZi 11y ago> Personally, the idea of putting a device with a camera and microphone behind a two-way mirror just feels a bit too much like a telescreen for me. Tape over the camera, break microphone? But yeah.
- gus_massa 11y agoI'd like that the "consider no biking " message had the bike image with a strikethrough.
- danpeddle 11y agoGreat idea! Repurposing old tablets / mobiles is the cherry on top. Fascinating how combining otherwise dumb material with smart technology produces something so compelling.
- roberthahn 11y agoIf you want to build an interactive programmable mirror, looks like Nanogest might be useful: http://www.nanocritical.com/nanogest/ http://www.nanocritical.com/nanogest/ It's available for both iOS and Android. It recognizes 4 swipe gestures (top, down, left, right) and a wave gesture. It's a library so you'd still have to build the information display part.
- Drdrdrq 11y agoThanks for the link! Is this really a state of the art right now? I was a bit disappointed when I saw the video... Gestures look awkward.
- roberthahn 11y agoBeats me - I just wanted to see if a library like this even existed.
- init0 11y agoOne of the prediction -> https://github.com/hemanth/ama/issues/13#issuecomment-124816126 https://github.com/hemanth/ama/issues/13#issuecomment-124816...