Smart Magic Mirror
A Smart Mirror is a two-way mirror with an inbuilt display behind the glass. The display can show anything you want on the mirror’s surface such as the current time, weather forecast, news feed, upcoming appointments, and more.
Smart mirrors sometimes called “Magic Mirrors”, can come in all sizes from small table mirrors to full-sized mirrors.
What makes a Smart Mirror ‘smart’ is the ability to display any information you want on it?
A smart mirror can be customized to display local weather forecasts, news bulletins, your upcoming calendar schedule, social media feeds, etc.
A smart mirror can easily be customized to include whatever information you want. There are many people online building custom modules and code to get smart mirrors to do different things
How Do Smart Mirrors Work?
There are three components of a smart mirror: a two-way mirror, a display, and a computer device. Let’s look at each part and how they run the smart mirror.
Two-Way Mirror: A normal mirror has a film behind the glass that reflects 100% of incoming light. This means when you look at a mirror, you see your reflection. A two-way mirror reflects light from one direction but allows light to pass through from the other direction.
You’ve probably seen two-way mirrors in the movies in police interrogation rooms. Smart mirrors use two-way mirrors to allow the light from the display to pass through the mirror.
Display: behind the two-way mirror sits a monitor screen/TV/tablet. This is used to display any information or modules for your smart mirror. The display can be the same size as the mirror, or it can be smaller than the mirror.
Throughout this site, you’ll see different sized displays used in smart mirrors.
Computer: something has to run the content you see on your smart mirror. A small computer device such as a Raspberry Pi is more than enough to power a smart mirror.
The type of computer device you need depends on what you want your smart mirror to do.
Advantages of a Smart Mirror
Like many smart devices, it’s hard to imagine how useful they can be until you use one. The big advantage of a smart mirror is the ability to display useful information without needing to open apps or do anything.
You simply look at your smart mirror and the information is there.
For example, imagine the mirror in your bathroom is a smart mirror. Every morning you probably wake up and stand in front of that mirror as you brush your teeth or prepare for the day.
Imagine while you go through your morning routine you can look at your mirror and see a traffic report, the weather forecast for the day, and your day’s schedule.
Being able to take in all of this useful information without interrupting your normal routine is very liberating. You can customize your mirror to display anything you find useful.
Want a news feed for specific topics? Easy. Want to see stock price movements? Done. Want a daily quote to inspire you every morning to go for that run? You got it.
A great advantage of building your own smart mirror is the modules and software other people have already built. There are literally hundreds of different modules other people have built you can use for your smart mirror.
You can fully customize your smart mirror by picking and choosing the modules you want to include.
Smart Mirror Features
The great thing about building your own smart mirror is you can customize it to your own needs.
Here are some ideas of different features you could include in your smart mirror:
- Touch screen: adding touch to your smart mirror lets you interact with it
- LED lighting: a simple LED strip around your smart mirror can add some nice feature lighting to your room
- Motion sensor: turn your smart mirror on automatically when you enter your room
- Voice control: ask your mirror questions or give it commands
- Facial recognition: your mirror can detect who is in the room and customize the content to match each person
As you can see, you have a lot of flexibility over your smart mirror. You’ll find articles and information across this website on different ways you can set up your smart mirror and customize it to your needs.
On our Retail in Future portal, you may found an article about the smart mirror: “folio//mirrors“.
Interactive mirrors
Have you ever wondered how the mirror affects people? Research has shown that it draws the attention of about 99% of people being around it. With the surprise element of an interactive surface, you can be sure that this mirror will be noticeable. According to a report from the Markets & Markets analytical agency, the size of the market for interactive mirrors is estimated at 2.82 billion US dollars, will grow by 9.41% per year, and by 2023 will reach 4.42 billion US dollars. Thanks to an unexpected element of the interactive surface, this mirror does not go unnoticed.
Interactive Mirrors are a frame/frameless solution, ready to integrate into both modern and traditional interiors. … From engaging games to product selectors, the applications of a high-quality mirror display are vast, allowing audiences to interact with the images being shown on screen. There can be specially adjusted content displayed in the mirror, except for the traditional reflection. An interactive mirror is an innovative way to communicate with your client and it enables you to convey the message in an easy yet creative way.
The major difference between a smart and interactive mirror is in interactions. The smart mirror just presents predefined useful information to the user, since the interactive mirror has interaction with the user. The interaction level depends on interactive mirror usage. For example, in the fashion industry, interactive mirrors have a very wide usage range.
This interactive mirror uses kinetic technology to communicate with the customer. More about this technology in some of our next articles.
On the other hand, the next example presents RFID technology as a key point between customers and retailers thru an interactive mirror. More about RFID technology you can find in my previous article on this topic: “From Multi-brand Sports Retail’s Best-Kept Secret To Goldmine“.
Could interactive mirrors be the future of shopping? Perhaps, as more and more of them are making their way into more retailers, giving shoppers a cross-over between physical stores and digital interactions. COVID-19 pandemic speeds up this trend as a way of safety interaction between customers and salesmen.
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