User Friendly Magic Mirror?

tripalreno4

I’m making a magic mirror as a gift for someone and was wondering if there was a way to make it very user friendly for them in the sense of them being able to connect to their wifi and so on. Anyone know of a mod or something? I’m making this as a touch screen via ir touch frame on an rpi3 but am considering different options such as o-droid or tinker box if I have to go that route.

majik655

Not sure if this will help you and sorry if this is obvious…
but if you want you could pre set up their wifi for them…

edit the wpa_supplicant.conf

When you connect to wifi the wpa_supplicant.conf file is created with your ssid’s and passwords etc etc…

So you can connect to your own wifi… then go edit the conf file and ADD their wifi …

When you first write the image to the sd card…there is no conf file because you havent connected to wifi yet (obviously)… so when done writing your sd card image… you can open the sd card (on widows or whatever) and create the wpa_supplicant.conf in the root with the info needed … otherwise just connect to wifi then edit the file.

Not sure if that helps you all that much but you can pre set it up you just need their info like SSID they would connect to and password

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Below is what mine looks like with 2 ssid’s to choose from …

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=US

network={
        ssid="SSID HERE"
        psk="PASSWORDHERE"
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

network={
        ssid="SSID2 HERE"
        psk="PASSWORDHERE"
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}

Feedy88

@majik655 I think the request was more about maintenance and configuration, so this would not help too much.

@tripalreno4 completely different Concept would be to not use this MM-Project but trying Mirr.os (https://glancr.de/mirr-os/). It is a full OS and provides a smart phone App to do the configuration on the mirror.

Cons:

only in German (afaik)
only Limited modules, not open source. Most common modules are supported though.

bhepler

I think the problem can be broken down into two parts. First, how to get the mirror connected to their WiFi so as to give it connectivity. Second, how to update the mirror configuration. The Remote Control module should allow them to configure the mirror fairly easily, assuming it’s stable.

If you want remote access to their mirror, you can set up a reverse SSH to establish a connection to a server of your choice. I wrote up a tutorial about it.

Feedy88

@majik655 sorry, I didn’t read the original post properly, actually you are right.

@tripalreno4 actually I think @majik655 is right:

edit the wpa_supplicant.conf and add the gift receivers WiFi information
configure the MM to automatically start upon boot with pm2

This would basically make it a “plug and play” apart from configuring modules ofc.

bhepler

There is another possibility. You can purchase a cellular internet USB stick and connect it to the Pi. That way the mirror will always have connectivity and will be ready to go out of the box, so to speak.

At some point, they can get it hooked up to their own WiFi and you can retrieve the cellular connection. If you only charge the USB for a month or so, that will give them a hard deadline to get it connected to their network. Or you can ask them for their WiFi network & passphrase and configure it for them remotely.

Pro tip: If you have an android phone, the next time you’re at their place ask to get on their WiFi. You can extract the network & password and pre-program the mirror for them. You may be able to do this with an iPhone, but I don’t know the steps.

majik655

@Feedy88 said in User Friendly Magic Mirror?:

@majik655 sorry, I didn’t read the original post properly, actually you are right.

@tripalreno4 actually I think @majik655 is right:

edit the wpa_supplicant.conf and add the gift receivers WiFi information

configure the MM to automatically start upon boot with pm2

This would basically make it a “plug and play” apart from configuring modules ofc.

No worries Feedy88 …

I have made a couple of these for people. From my own experience it depends on how many or what kind of modules you will be putting on the mirror.
Specialty modules that need their account info you will have to get for them and configure.

The more specialized you make it the harder it will be to “keep updated” so if you are going to keep it simple such as a clock, weather module and things like default modules then just getting the wifi up and running without them is probably the easiest along with using PM2 for auto boot … if mirror crashes or needs to turn off …pm2 will restart the mirror for them.

As for updating… you can turn off the update module notification (or leave it on I guess) but if you are using just the default modules there really isnt a reason to update unless something breaks.

BKeyport

Alternatively, you could set up a script to update everything on a schedule and remove the update notifier. That would be a handy tool, wouldn’t it, @sdetweil 🤣🤣🤣

(yes, I’m pointing at Sam, as he’s the scripting minor deity)

sdetweil

@BKeyport yeh yeh. but as u point out. why update if not broken!

Serge

@tripalreno4 here is how to make the user-friendly web interface to connect you RPi to WiFi network.
https://lemariva.com/blog/2019/02/raspberry-pi-cups-printer-server-using-docker. Follow until CUPS installation.

After installation, your RPi will create its own wifi access point (AP) if no known wifi identified by RPi.
When AP created, User connects to it, goes to
http://192.168.27.1 and enter his wifi credentials using simple web interface (scan->select->enter password).
Worked for me.
I have made some visual adjustment and it looks like:
alt text