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Dashboard

A homemade smart mirror.

New mirror (version 2)

The first mirror was on my wall a full year and got used every day. There were two issues I wanted to fix when building a new mirror:

  1. Deeper blacks. The original screen was an IPS LCD gave off a faint glow if the room was dark. An AMOLED screen would be better.
  2. Glass mirror. Plexiglass 2-way mirrors are wavy and don't work well as a dressing mirror. Plexiglass also shouldn't be cleaned with ammonia (Windex).

Here's what I used to build the new mirror:

  1. An Android tablet, Galaxy Tab S2. This has an AMOLED display which has much deeper blacks.
  2. An upgraded weather/time webpage, index.html. This now displays the current weather and the forecast in ~10 hours. This is more useful day-to-day (e.g., when getting ready in the morning) than a 2-day high/low.
  3. An app to show the webpage, app/Dashboard.
  4. A 16" x 48" glass two-way mirror from twowaymirrors.com ($250).
  5. A 16" x 48" OEM2-21 frame from framing4yourself.com ($63).
  6. Black foam board from Blick art supply ($10).
  7. Black construction paper, taped behind the mirror for an even background.

Original mirror (version 1)

This was a smart mirror built from:

  1. An Android phone, Nexus 5X.

  2. A weather/time webpage, index.html.

  3. An app to show the webpage, app/Dashboard.

  4. A acrylic 2-way mirror from TAP plastics. (30cm x 60cm out of the surplus bin, $30)

  5. Black construction paper, taped behind the mirror for an even background.

Credit to Becky Stern's article for the idea.

Interesting findings

  • There are not many good examples of how to print English ordinals (1st, 2nd, etc). Here's a nice way to print ordinals in javascript:

    // Return the English ordinal for a number.
function ordinal(number) {
    // The general pattern:
    //   number ends in 1 -> st (e.g., 31st)
    //   number ends in 2 -> nd (e.g., 32nd)
    //   number ends in 3 -> rd (e.g., 33rd)
    // 11, 12, and 13 are exceptions and just use 'th'.
    switch(number % 10) {
        case(1): if (number % 100 == 11) { break; } else { return 'st' };
        case(2): if (number % 100 == 12) { break; } else { return 'nd' };
        case(3): if (number % 100 == 13) { break; } else { return 'rd' };
    }
    return 'th';
}

  • The front-facing camera, now taped over, works well from behind the mirror. This could be useful as an art display (maybe an infinite mirror) that responds to the environment.

  • The Nexus 5X's IPS LCD panel seems happy to display a static page without burn-in or heat issues. Before starting the project I did a test of a static image at max brightness for a week and couldn't notice any problems. After 1 year of continuous use, the Nexus 5X's screen still looks brand new.