The typical beginner question

_V_

Hey guys,

So Ive been watching the MM life for a couple of years now but always hesitated to start with it cause I usually have to do things 2 ( just getting impatient most of the ties and start to run over steps ^^ )

Now what Id like to know is following:

I need a suitable Pi, thats obvious. If Im really only using the MM for organization among family members, I guess I dont need much ram in my Pi? What size of storage would you recommend?

Also I wonder, what screen to use and how to get the actual mirror part done?
Like I need a screen that behind a somehwat mirror surface, otherwise I could simply place a tablet to wall right?
Besides the Pi with some hardware modules like Bluetooth adapter and WLan card n stuff, I also need some kind of touch controller, which gets the touches from the mirror surface transmitted to the Pi?

Or would it be smarter to just buy a touchscreen in desired size and put the Put behind it / behind the wall / somewhere hidden ? If its a question of taste whether I want an actual mirror or not - I really dont need a mirror in this case ^^

Maybe you could share some light with me, and apologies for the maybe bad english, its not my first language.

Thanks a lot and regards from Germany
Tobi

sdetweil

@_V_ i would recommend 2g memory as a minimum now a days

touch is a problem area MagicMirror itself does provide support for touch on anything , its and output information panel

there are a couple newer modules that provide touch functions, mmm-chores and mmm-calendarext3.

with a few modiles and done creative configuration you can use touch to hide or show modules, or groups of modules (aka page)

but no general data entry. most of the apis provided by services are pull only

mirror and touch is complex. if the surface glass directly touches the touch display and has the right qualities , it might be possible (screen protector on phone like)
but i dont think you can get direct attachment to the monitor or tv screen that way

one could add an ir touch frame on TOP on the glass, which acts like a mouse. but these are not asthetically appealing imho.

MagicMirror will run on linux, macos, and windows
and you can run the server side somewhere and the display side somewhere else ( provided the hardware works that way too") as it uses a web browser for display.

speech reco, or direct attach hardware sensors would only work at the server side for example

look thru the show your mirror topic for examples of others implementations

_V_

@sdetweil
Hey Sam, thanks for the helpful input.

Ok I try to sum up a bit for my understandings:

Mirror option and touch is something hard to do or not all the way functional/supported, correct?

In general you would recommend, that the MM itself is mainly/only used to display stuff, not for input?
( unless you connect components for input to a server like Pi ? )

Id like to have a screen/tablet to show the basic module stuff, which you already mentioned and which Ive seen in the module corner. Id like to be able to enter some new appointment or calnder stuff via the screen/tablet directly tbh. It would be for the 3 persons in our household and for such itd be nice if I could arrange 3 users with a quick login method ( face, fingerprint, something? ) and everybody would be able to enter its own stuff.

Like said, I really appreciate your time and help.

sdetweil

@_V_ there I hear what you want… today there is no capability to provide all that

was someone that had made a module for entering calendar events, but I can’t find it now.
its much easier to just use your phone.

there are modules that can provide profiling, UI by user.

FaceRecoDNN can use camera images, this one doesn’t support reco on server and camera on client
ProfileSwitcher, I haven’t researched how you select profiles

I should note that MM UI is 100% javascript, and uses the latest JS engine capabilities,
many tablets/pads are NOT at current level, and so our code doesn’t run there in browser unless its updated to latest , which many don’t provide support like that.

UncleRoger

@_V_

I’ve got mine running on a RPi 4 with (iirc) 4gb of memory which seems to be enough. I’ve got a lot of modules divvied up into 3 pages that are selected via a wee macropad (three buttons & a knob) attached below the screen. (My dev version has 6 pages and I’m waiting on a new 6-key macropad so I van put that on the main system.)

I don’t have it behind a mirror; it’s just in a wooden frame.

I (and my family) add stuff to our calendars on our computers/phones; the MM is only for display. If I didn’t have to waste 8+ hours a day at the stupid job thing, and if I had more money (college in the US is outrageously expensive), I would try to get touch working so as to be able to go to the next/previous month on the calendar (MMM-CalendarExt3) but I’m happy with it as is.

I don’t worry about profiles – mostly everyone looks at the dinner menu (I have a google calendar just to say what I’m cooking for the next week or two) or the main calendar. Those are on the first page.

So, based on what you said, I would suggest getting yourself a basic RPi – I think the Pi Zero 2 is a little underpowered, but it’s doable – and an old monitor and start playing with it. Worry about installation and all that once you have it showing what you want and working the way you’d like it to.

I’m fortunate in that I have an extra Pi so I have a copy running on it that I can play around with without breaking the one in the kitchen that everyone looks at.

sdetweil

@UncleRoger said in The typical beginner question:

I would try to get touch working so as to be able to go to the next/previous month on the calendar (MMM-CalendarExt3)

if you use pages, add an instance for each page

mode:month
monthIndex:0/1/2 for each month on each page (this, next and after)
if using MMM-pages, used the class name page definitions, then its easy to set
each instance on a separate page
here is my config for pages and ext3

     {
        module: "MMM-CalendarExt3",
        position: "middle_center",
        classes: "page1",
        order: "*",
        animateIn: "None",
        animateOut: "None",
        index: 0,
        label: "instance 1",
        config: {
          mode: "month",
          fontSize: "30px",
          monthIndex: 0,
          minimalDaysOfNewYear: "1"
        },
        disabled: false,
        hiddenOnStartup: false,
        configDeepMerge: false
      },
      {
        module: "MMM-CalendarExt3",
        position: "middle_center",
        classes: "page2",
        order: "*",
        animateIn: "None",
        animateOut: "None",
        index: 1,
        label: "instance 2",
        config: {
          mode: "month",
          fontSize: "30px",
          monthIndex: 1
        },
        disabled: false,
        hiddenOnStartup: false,
        configDeepMerge: false
      },
      {
        module: "MMM-CalendarExt3",
        position: "middle_center",
        classes: "page3",
        order: "*",
        animateIn: "None",
        animateOut: "None",
        index: 2,
        label: "instance 3",
        config: {
          mode: "month",
          weekIndex: -1,
          dayIndex: -1,
          weeksInView: 3,
          cellDateOptions: {
            month: "short",
            day: "numeric"
          },
          eventTimeOptions: {
            timeStyle: "short"
          },
          headerWeekDayOptions: {
            weekday: "long"
          },
          headerTitleOptions: {
            month: "long"
          },
          maxEventLines: 5,
          fontSize: "30px",
          eventHeight: "22px",
          refreshInterval: 120000,
          waitFetch: 5000,
          glanceTime: 60000,
          animationSpeed: 2000,
          useSymbol: true,
          useWeather: true,
          popoverTemplate: "./popover.html",
          popoverTimeout: 30000,
          popoverPeriodOptions: {
            dateStyle: "short",
            timeStyle: "short"
          },
          popoverDateOptions: {
            dateStyle: "full"
          },
          displayCW: true,
          animateIn: "fadeIn",
          animateOut: "fadeOut",
          showMore: true,
          useIconify: true,
          skipDuplicated: true,
          monthIndex: 2,
          displayLegend: false,
          displayEndTime: false,
          displayWeatherTemp: false,
          skipPassedEventToday: false,
          useMarquee: false,
          customHeader: false,
          weekends: [],
          calendarSet: []
        },
        disabled: false,
        hiddenOnStartup: false,
        configDeepMerge: false
      },
      {
        module: "MMM-pages",
        disabled: false,
        config: {
          modules: [
            [
              "page1"
            ],
            [
              "page2"
            ],
            [
              "page3"
            ]
          ],
          fixed: [
            "fixed"
          ],
          hiddenPages: {
            screenSaver: [],
            admin: []
          },
          rotationTime: 60000
        },
        order: "*"
      },

use the page-indicator module to add buttons for the pages… (and you can customize the buttons with css)

UncleRoger

@sdetweil

An interesting idea but I think I’ve got too many pages as it is – I’ve got three currently and going to switch to six soon – but it’s not enough of an issue to really put much thought into. Thanks though!

_V_

Hey guys

Thanks for all the interesting info.
I guess Ill go as you both advised - Ill get a Pi ( usually I buy overpowered stuff anyways ^^ ) and a flat screen to try around and get things started. If you say, itll be easier to enter with another device like smartphone, this will surely be the way I am following then.

Ill be back with some errors Ill make while setting up the Pi and MM software ;)

@UncleRoger a last question though: Ive read a lot about screens which need to have some ports ( hdmi or something ) located on special place or direction - you dont got a recommendation for a screen 17" to 20" which meets those conditions?

sdetweil

@_V_ use (my) the installer script listed as alternative ways to install

_V_

Guys, thanks for the interesting thoughts.
@sdetweil If you say itll be easier with the phone, Ill surely go that way.

@UncleRoger you maybe wanna share a pic or two of this controller and how it is connected? :)
I guess Ill do as you adviced and get a Pi. Actually I already got one to play some retro games with it.
Usually I buy overpowered hardware, just cause Im one of those victims who can hardly resist ^^

Just a last question: So Ive read a couple of times that people warn to check for the right angle/position/whatever of the hdmi port of the screen - is this more related to the people who plan on put the screen into a housing / behind a frame? I guess with a 90° or even 180° adapter itll be good for me if I am going to attach it to a wall?
Out of curiousity: Any screen suggestions?

Thanks a lot again