Introduce yourself!

[Sunburned]

Hello All,
Name is Angelo from New York, USA, 33 years old. Coding experience, virtually zero but I built a CNC machine from scratch a couple of years back. A friend saw it and it and landed me an IT job at his company, just an entry level gig doing IT support but hey, it’s a start right? My MBA is in international business so the career change scared the heck out of me. So far I am really happy with it though. I have always been a maker and having just finished my ride on cooler I needed a new project. Enter the smart mirror. Really looking forward to offering and getting advice from the forum

Great to meet everyone!!!

[cowboysdude]

Hey guys my name is John and I’m 53 and from Upstate NY [about 5 hours away from NYC]…

I like to try new things that I have NO experience with such as programming, etc. So I would say that the help I’ve gotten here and the learning I’m getting is priceless to me.

I was looking for a ‘Magic Mirror’ that I could install and there are a few out there… I found this one and feel in love with it instantly. Now I have people asking me all the time ‘can you build me one?’… I tell them I can but you can also build one yourself… I am not, nor will I ever try to profit from others work because I think when someone makes something and ‘donates’ it others should not benefit from it like that.

I thought at one time of using my RPI3 to build a ‘car stereo’ but found that there was little to no help … so I found an image that was in German and helped get it translated over into English so that other could use the software to create their own… so now there’s an English version floating around on my google drive for people.

I am always glad to help others if I can. This is what this is all about and I really appreciate the hard work that’s been done!! I’m going to try to port an NFL scoreboard over that I wrote in PHP for a joomla module on my website… why? I don’t know… I’m hoping to learn something from it!

[yawns]

Hi everyone,

my name is Stefan, I’m 34, married, living in Germany (near cologne). I always enjoyed developing Software so I completed a 2 years education and ended as a software engineer in a small company designing websites and backend for tourist related topics. I noticed I did but like doing that for the rest of my life so I was looking for alternatives. Now I am working as a senior IT analyst in a TV production company.

Over the last years I spent my free time rebuilding my car, swapping the engine, adding aircondition, changing the drive train, removing rust and getting a fresh paint in the original colour. This project was finished last year, just in time for marriage.
I always liked building things, working with wood and glue and electronics, I can’t do “nothing” and I wanted to play around with a raspberry for a long time, so I recently bought one with some sensors and stuff.
We just bought a house which is about to be built so I plan to create a smart mirror on a central place in the house, get the wiring done to avoid cables hanging around.
In addition 4 months ago we rescued a small pitbull called Chico from the shelter and are now doing our best to educate this little boy.

Best regards, Stefan

[mahabub66]

This post is deleted!

[CCoates]

HI I’m Chris, 32 Financial Software Specialist (tech support basically) from Newcastle, UK.

Been a Pi user for about a year I have 3 at present, 1 running a robot coded with Scratch (with my Son 7)
a Pi zero runing Kodi
a third in the post …

Currently aquiring parts to make a magic mirror after reading about in the Magpi Magazine

My coding experience is so far limited to scratch and i (somehow) figured out a code to connect my pi to my NAS box

[jreyes]

Hello! Johann here, programmer by day, and programmer by night too, weekends also! Started building my version of a smart mirror and doing research found magic mirror and community. Full of ideas and inspiration, good place to see explore the cutting edge of mirror technology!

So hi everyone.

[psk]

Hey guys! greetings from India.
My name is Prasanth, and I’m 24. Used to be a software engineer. Recently, I got a knee injury while playing football,
had to undergo surgery and I’ll on bed rest till January.

So hat’s how I came across magic mirror. Oh! the forum!! this is brimming with creativity. so good to be part of it.
I’m new to pi and nodejs and I’ve been following this for 3 weeks now, and the support seems to be amazing. \m/

My raspberry pi is on the way :D. Hopefully I will get to setup one for myself. and some day may be contribute to the community.

I’ve seen some voice recognition modules here. so thought of making one myself using IBM’s watson speech to text API.
I’m still working on it. you can find it here.

see you around guys. Cheers.

[darrene]

Hi all, Darren here from the UK. I’m 44 and just started my first MagicMirror2 project.

I’ve had a play with Evan Cohen’s Smart Mirror in the past which I like and will at some point possibly try to merge some of the code into my MagicMirror.

I have an Iiyama 27" LED monitor on the way and some 2-way acrylic. In the meantime I’m developing my install on an RPI3

The idea I have for my mirror workflow goes along the lines of;

1. facialrecognition -> detecting someone wakes the mirror up
2. person not recognised -> the mirror displays a default set of modules
3. person is recognised -> the mirror displays a lightweight personalised set of modules (ie calendar, fitbit, time to work if it’s a weekday, time to town if it’s a weekend)
4. speech recognition to bring up other modules as needed

It’s a bit of a mountain to climb given that my JS and Python skills are non-existent at the moment :)

[strawberry 3.141]

@darrene there are face and voice recognition modules already built

[cowboysdude]

I LOVE Evan’s mirror… the voice stuff is quick but you are limited to 50 calls per day…

PLUS there is NO way to make 3rd party modules for it… you come here and you can request things to have your mirror do and someone builds it… why? Because they want to :)

Evan has no plans for 3rd party modules which means whatever is there you have and that’s it.

I played with his and still have an SD card with a running mirror on it but I kept coming back to this one because of the possibilities… people develop amazing things all the time…

Since being here people have helped me greatly!! NFL module, Scheduler module…the list goes on and on NOT to mention a small Alarm clock mirror… that people basically build software to help with that such as a Touch alarm…

Evan is an awesome guy but like I said it’s limited… I needed/wanted it to do more… to fit me.

Because of this place and with a TON of help my next plan is a 32" livingroom mirror that can run my house… it’s being worked on… new territory takes time :)

@strawberry-3-141 has built a voice module that already controls several modules here… @paviro has built facial recognition for this mirror that works well … speech recognition is a tall order but I believe sooner or later it’ll get done…

Gotta remember a Raspberry pi can only handle so much… that’s why my 32" will be run on a full size motherboard [laptop or micro board, not sure yet]…

These are ALL great people doing great things to help many to fit their mirrors to their needs… it’s pretty amazing.

[darrene]

Thanks for the welcome both - @cowboysdude, I couldn’t have put it better. That’s what led me here to be honest - the thriving community and the comprehensive, pluggable modules :)

I like the way Evan’s mirror works but I think I need to emulate/build on that using MM2 and cherry-picking some modules as my starting point.

I’ve been playing around with some of the 3rd party modules already (I love the remote control!) and I’ve had a quick try with the facial recognition - I need to sit down for longer with that. I almost got there having gone through the training, then just hit a few snags

I’ve been dithering over which voicecontrol module to run with. I’ll probably try the various offerings one-by-one and see which seems a natural fit

I’ll look forward to seeing the 32" project unfold - that’s a monster! :) I must admit I’ve been thinking that with the workload imposed by the various recognition modules It might pay to move to a small laptop to do the heavy-lifting, but then it seems to make sense to go the Windows 10 route, as the realsense camera, cortana, etc are built in and I’d benefit from gesture controls out of the box, which shifts me away from the MM environment…

I think I’m going to start small and work my way up. As I add more functionality, if the Pi starts to struggle that might signify the point at which I need to build a second, laptop-powered mirror with more whistles and bells

[cowboysdude]

OH I agree!! Sounds like you are on the same road I am… @strawberry-3-141 helped me today… there is a module but I wanted it to do something a little bit different so I tried my hand at tweaking it… I was close but he showed me the error and it works now! HUGE Thanks @strawberry-3-141 by the way!!

I don’t know if you realize this and some don’t … some of the people building stuff and helping us all out don’t even have mirrors!!! THAT is utterly and mind blowing amazing!!!

The 32" will be a while :) Yes honestly I was really thinking laptop motherboard… quieter can get smaller power supplies to run them :) OR a mini ITX you can use laptop power supplies on some of them too!

So in a nutshell I’m waiting on an open source thermostat that runs the heating/cooling and is wifi AND bluetooth… then I’ll get to building the actual mirror itself… [MY parents have a 40" TV they don’t want or need soooooooooo LOL]…

Welcome and I’m glad you’re here… learning is awesome and it can be fun!

Thanks to @MichMich , @ianperrin , @strawberry-3-141 and all the other developers!!! Too many to mention!

[JediJah]

Hi All,
I’m Shonari. I’m 34 and live in Brooklyn, NY. I work at a startup building cellphone charging kiosks. Love to make and have a new found affinity for Raspberry Pi. Made a MagicMirror last December and recently decided to upgrade it to a Pi3 and MagicMirror2. Love the modules. Thanks to all those who contribute their time to this great project.

Cheers,

[cowboysdude]

Welcome @JediJah

[ceerix]

Hello everyone,

I’m Alex and I’m from Bavaria :).

Yesterday i have finished the hardware and building stuff of my first magic mirror. I like this project very much and I absolutely appreciate the work of the developers for the great software and modules!

[Jopyth]

Hi everyone,

I am Joseph (23) from Potsdam, Germany and study software engineering (almost finished). When I saw this project, I knew I wanted a mirror, and when the basic hardware was working, I started messing up other people’s modules with my wild ideas. :D Gonna post some pictures of the mirror, in the present your mirror section soon.

Then I implemented a few modules on my own and there is so much I still want to do, but so little time.

Hopefully I will present the project (both hard- and software) at my university and see if I can inspire more people to join in, and build an amazing Magic Mirror.

Best regards, Joseph

P.S.: Anyone living in the Berlin / Brandenburg area, my VBB module is hopefully ready for the public soon (unfortunately not yet).

[done]

Hi, I’m Dominic, 42 yrs old, married with one 2,5 years old boy and a 1,5 year old twin couple (girl and boy).
We live in Berlin, Germany.

I learned about the original magic mirror from a friend and started crawling for information. That’s about a year ago.
After a while I intensified my search and since my wife and children are in my wife’s country for some months, I had time for this project.
Well, at least I thought I have enough time.
You know: “If a man says that he will do it, he will! You don’t have to remind him every 6 months.” :D
Now they are soon coming back and I have a deadline.
Module assembling is as finished as it can be - always new cool mods that need to be tested ;) - and I go for the hardware.

This project - the magic mirror - is really great. Probably the best idea I found on the web for a good while.
For me the mirror will be the main info board, a family calender to plan the days and weeks when the kids going to anniversaries, hobbies and other appointments. Shopping list etc.

I really like the community. It is a very good size. The communication is very friendly. The input and ideas are great.
Unfortunately I’m not a programmer. So the best I can do is to have an idea that hopefully one of you guys like too.

cheers
done

[Jopyth]

@done said in Introduce yourself!:

You know: “If a man says that he will do it, he will! You don’t have to remind him every 6 months.” :D

Exactly.

I wanted a mirror since January, and finished around June. :D

[Kathy120]

Hi all,
I’m Katherine Vann from Canada. I’m a newbie here and I would like to share my thoughts and ideas with you all. Also I would like to get opinions from you all.

[DirkS]

Hi i’m Dirk from Germany. I’m 35 years old and an application engineer for laser marking systems in industries.

Collecting a lot of hobbies such as Modding, Networking, Renovation, Garden, building things in general.

It was very nice to get in touch with the Magic Mirror Project and started to build my first. Searched a very long time for a good place that it can be a part of our daily life. Found it a couple of month later and resulted in an InWall Mirror. Will be completed soon! :D

Nice to be here!

regards
Dirk