Raspberry Pi Zero W for Magic Mirror

Arno123

Hi All,

I’m new to this forum, and also new to the world of Magic Mirror

Looking to get into this, so readup on the possibility of using the Pi Zero 2W, but get alot of conflicting messages, where some say the 512Mb is not enough, but others say its sufficiant, albeit it might be slightly slow at times

I tried to configure the Pi Zero by running the desktop version, but could not get Magic Mirror to install / run (keeps on failing due to unsuported OS) … Lateron I mange to get it to run using only the Lite OS ( ie no desktop ) … so far so good, but keen to hear some views

So questions few then,
a) Any of you running Magic Mirror on the Pi Zero 2W, and if so - how is it configured (Desktop / Lite) ?
b) Can I run / use some form of PIR / Camera to detect someone to swich the LCD on/off - again, any issues ?
c) Any other issues I might need to be aware off ?

If the Zero is not ideal, what other Pi should I consider [ thinking my other board - a Pi4 4Gig, might be somewhat of an overkill ? ] – but wanna hear from you guys with bit more experience than me on this topic

Cheers !

sdetweil

@Arno123 it’ll run just fine

flash the SD card, boot, skip updates, and run my install script. it will do everything needed.

see
https://github.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts

as part of the install it will increase the swap space.

Arno123

@sdetweil Excellent

Thank you, I’ll give this a go!

Arno123

@sdetweil This works an absolute treat, thank you!

sdetweil

@Arno123 awesome!

mariosgouros

Mine works with a pi zero w 2 and I am very satisfied with the way it performs. I followed the official procedure as described in the forums and got it working on buster os desktop which is essential for some modules. Used to run the project on pi zero w with buster os lite and for basic and simple stuff the project used to run fine minus some lags when refreshing modules but nothing special.
As I decided to run more demanding modules running pi zero w 2 was the only solution to keep the project small and low cost. For the modules I am using I’m for than satisfied with the way it performs.
Anyway, all I can confirm is that magic mirror on pi zero w 2 with buster os desktop can perform nice.

Jakobud

I recently got a RPi Zero 2W and installed Raspberry Pi OS (latest legacy version from the RPi Imager) and then installed MM2 using the script (which worked really well). But Chromium will not run for me. Everything I read says that Chromium will not work on the RPi Zero 2 because it’s not fast enough or doesn’t have enough memory. Chromium absolutely will not start on mine. What am I missing here?

sdetweil

@Jakobud hm… try the not legacy image, runs great on my pi02w

legacy really for armv6l

are you using the full image?

Jakobud

After choosing RPi Zero 2 W it recommends this one to me, which is what I used. What version should I be using instead exactly?

sdetweil

@Jakobud I don’t use the raspberry imager cause of problems and this filtering

I use the list and then image myself
https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/#raspberry-pi-os-64-bit

Jakobud

@sdetweil Okay which one do you use specifically?

sdetweil

@Jakobud the top one on that page

davidgagne

@sdetweil I am ripping my hair out trying to get MM running on a Pi Zero W. I’ve followed all of your (super helpful) suggestions across multiple posts, but no matter what I do, I keep getting:

[PM2][ERROR] File ecosystem.config.js not found

any time I try to execute pm2 start.

I’ve run your upgrade / update scripts from github, I’ve removed Chromium and replaced it with Firefox, I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled ten different flavors of the PiOS, I’ve tried the MagicMirrorOS that someone else posted, etc. All with no luck.

Do you have any ideas what could be the problem here?

Thanks in advance,
dvg

sdetweil

@davidgagne said in Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W for Magic Mirror:

File ecosystem.config.js no found

well, I haven’t seen that…, BUT it sounds like from a google search thgat you have the wrong node js version installed…

but

flash the sd card… its a pi02W, a 3 in pi0 form factor

then run my install script. don’t dop anything else first

you can try to see if you can fixup pm2 first…

pm2 stop all
pm2 status
this will display a line

pi@raspberrypi42:~ $ pm2 status
┌────┬────────────────────┬──────────┬──────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ id │ name               │ mode     │ ↺    │ status    │ cpu      │ memory   │
├────┼────────────────────┼──────────┼──────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ 0  │ MagicMirror        │ fork     │ 0    │ online    │ 0%       │ 2.7mb    │
└────┴────────────────────┴──────────┴──────┴───────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

you can use the name or number on any line

pm2 delete 0
pm2 save -f
then run
bash -c “$(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts/master/fixuppm2.sh)”

to recreate the app in pm2.

lets see…

else redo the install as above

davidgagne

@sdetweil said in Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W for Magic Mirror:

flash the sd card… its a pi02W, a 3 in pi0 form factor

I’m sorry but I don’t understand what this means. Which PiOS should I flash? I have been trying with the Legacy, 32-bit.

(If it makes a difference, I actually have a Raspberry Pi Zero W Rev 1.1. I don’t think it’s a 2.)

Thank you!

sdetweil

@davidgagne ok, if it IS a pi0W, then 32 bit legacy image

flash sd card, boot to the desktop, use terminal window or ssh

then my install script.

they have removed the chromium browser, for armv6l, so you will have to use firefox or one of the others… midori or surf

so YOU MUST use the environment variable in
~/MagicMirror/installers/mm.sh to set the browser to use ( all have to be installed manually)

davidgagne

@sdetweil Okay. I’m doing this right now.

Flashed card with Legacy 32-bit.

Connected via ssh to run your script.

bash -c  "$(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts/master/raspberry.sh)"

Answered yes to disable screen saver and use pm2 questions.

Removed chromium with:

sudo apt-get remove chromium-browser
sudo apt autoremove

Added Firefox with:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox-esr

Enabled VNC using sudo raspi-config GUI
Connect via TigerVNC

Edit mm.sh via VNC in Pi's baked-in text editor by adding:

cd ~/MagicMirror
export external_browser=firefox
DISPLAY=:0 npm start

sudo reboot
Connect via ssh
```
cd MagicMirror
pm2 start MagicMirror
```

And now -- finally! -- some progress:

[PM2] Spawning PM2 daemon with pm2_home=/home/dvg/.pm2
[PM2] PM2 Successfully daemonized
[PM2][ERROR] Script not found: /home/dvg/MagicMirror/MagicMirror

So … now what have I done wrong? What script is missing?

sdetweil

@davidgagne well…

it seems the pm2 setup failed for some reason

can you send me the ~/install.log

my same userid at Gmail.

you didn’t have to vnc to edit, nano works over ssh.

because the pm2 setup was not completed,
when you did pm2 start from the MagicMirror folder, it was trying to create the app MagicMirror command
/home/username/MagicMirror/MagicMirror

can you try to run the fixuppm2 script from my scripts page

davidgagne

@sdetweil Here’s what I got after running your fixup script:

[PM2] Applying action restartProcessId on app [MagicMirror](ids: [ 0 ])
[PM2] [MagicMirror](0) ✓
┌────┬────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬──────────┬────────┬──────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ id │ name           │ namespace   │ version │ mode    │ pid      │ uptime │ ↺    │ status    │ cpu      │ mem      │ user     │ watching │
├────┼────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ 0  │ MagicMirror    │ default     │ 2.27.0  │ fork    │ 27952    │ 0s     │ 1    │ online    │ 0%       │ 2.5mb    │ dvg      │ enabled  │
└────┴────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴──────────┴────────┴──────┴───────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┘
[PM2] Saving current process list...
[PM2] Successfully saved in /home/dvg/.pm2/dump.pm2

I’ll email install.log to you as soon as I can figure out how to … find and copy the install log.

sdetweil

@davidgagne and MagicMirror should have come up using firefox