@sdetweil You’ve got that right. I think the model you all are using is on the spot. Whether it is the Magic Mirror or those folks doing open source operating systems and front-ends for 3d printers you kind of have to be a tinkerer at heart and while companies think they can make money by filling a niche for people who aren’t tinkerers, I think they will find it more of a challenge than they realize.

I have to go to a doctor every month and chatting with one of the PA’s it turns out he has same 3d printer as me. He has never run it. He assembled it but did not know it was on him to compile/configure the software. It is a massive paperweight as of last time I asked.

Same with these Magic Mirrors. It’s on the person who builds it to configure it to their personal liking. When you first install the basic package, that’s just the start.

I was looking to see if I could use a stylus on a Pi 7" touchscreen and and in poking around various sellers of these small screens came across that Waveshare deal.

@bugsounet I have been idle in the Magic Mirror end of things and came across that MM ad by accident.
But I have been rehabilitating a 3d printer I bought and part of that has been installing some software, Klipper and Mainsail OS and something came up on their Discord which is potentially germane to Magic Mirror project.

One of the larger manufacturers of printers, Creality, came out with a sort of pre-configured tablet style device to run their printers. It has Klipper under the pretty cover and Klipper is open source, so according to one of the prime maintainers of Klipper, Creality is supposed to make their rendition of Klipper available based on the usage license but that is his battle to fight if he so desires.

The other point though is the part that I see as a somewhat double edged sword.
The version of Klipper in the Creality product is apparently an older buggy version of Klipper. The Klipper maintainer commented to the Discord at large that "good luck getting Creality to troubleshoot their own product which I can relate to, as I bought one of their products and there is no documentation or support from Creality. The same may apply to people that buy a Waveshare Magic Mirror. Who helps when a purchaser messes it up. Sam and the other helpful folks on the MM Forum, or Waveshare? Especially if it is an outdated version of MM they are selling.

If you want more people making Magic Mirrors you could facilitate that by getting Magic Mirror on to the Raspberry Pi Imager. I was flabbergasted to see DAKBOARD on the Imager as a downloadable Pi image. Flabergasted because I found MM by way of Dakboard which is the lamest MM Clone you could imagine for a monthly fee no less

Talk about brazen.
https://www.waveshare.com/product/raspberry-pi/laptop/all-in-one/13.3inch-magic-mirror-c4.htm

I have a SmartiPi Touch 2 and a SmartiPi Touch Pro I want to install MM on with both focusing on weather and maybe an item based on user request.

Do you recommend going for the latest greatest Bookworm install or an older Pi OS version to build off of? I’m not averse to a learning experience but don’t want to beat my head on a cinderblock wall either.
I had the infamous magic smoke :dashing_away: come out of the Pi 4 on my Ender 3D Printer and thinking about doing a MM or two while new parts come for printer. Nothing like feeding the Pi 4B with 24V instead of 5V.
Melted my Logitech Mouse/Keyboard dongle.

@Egnos The Endpoints and Midpoints are the devices that boost the I2C signal because according to what I have read I2C by itself is distance limited.
You buy the Endpoints and Midpoints to give you the distance capability. I’m not advocating Endpoints and Midpoints because of the JST connectors.

Your original question was to the effect “I have this gesture sensor but I also have a distance requirement that I2C alone can’t handle” or words to that effect.

I suggested you look at the Sparkfun Endpoint and Midpoints because that is what their function is.
The best I have to offer is that I took a Raspberry Pi 4B, wired a Sparkfun Midpoint right next to the Pi. On a plastic panel, so the Midpoint was maybe 2 inches (50 mm) from Pi.
I plugged a 50 ft (15 meter) standard ethernet cable into that Midpoint.
I then took a Sparkfun ENDPOINT and plugged it into the far end of the ethernet cable. I connected 3 sensors to Endpoint.

As far as Seeed/Grove it says it is I2C on your link but I have no experience with the brand and connection other than I think the Grove connection, may be proprietary. That is inconsequential though as you can get the Qwiic sized JST and splice the connector.
When I first got the hardware I wanted to test the distance claim so slapped together the setup outlined above.
All I can say is that the Midpoint and Endpoint purpose is to give you the distance. I have attached a picture of my ad-hoc test. The Raspberry Pi + Midpoint are another 10 - 15 ft beyond the tail of the blue line. That blue line and white line are the 50’ of ethernet cable and red circle is Endpoint and 3 sensors which are all Adafruit I2C. I want to reiterate that my experience is with Adafruit and Sparkfun sensors and as a general rule those are the only brands I buy so can’t vouch for other brands. In the past I have bought sensors from other companies that advertise as I2C but are really SPI .
These companies will put their brand stamp on their connection by giving it a name such as “Qwiic Connector” or “Grove Connector” but they appear to be JST connectors except Grove may be proprietary.
The easiest way out is to buy this cable but it is dependent on you buying a Midpoint and an Endpoint from Sparkfun. I’m no expert but I know of no other way to push that I2C signal a longer distance.
If Grove is Seeed Studio’s proprietary connector you have to see if Seeed Studio has a solution for pushing I2C long distances and commit to using all Seeed Studio components. The other option is to get the parts I have provided links to.

A member of the MM community asked me about long runs between a sensor and a Pi if I remember the original question correctly. I had already assembled a project doing just that using Sparkfun Midpoint and Endpoint connections. They are part of the Qwiic "ecosystem but they work real well. As a trial a had a 50 ft length of standard ethernet cable plugged it in as shown and then hung several environmental sensors at the far end using Qwiic cables coming of the Endpoint.
I refer to the wiring between instruments as “Jst TYPE” because I can’t keep up with all the various proprietary and industry standard connections in the market these days. There are different lengths of those Qwiic<–>Qwiic cables out there and have bought cables from both reputable venders and Amazon. Not entirely unexpected but have had a few of the Amazon cables that were bad.
There was a question about could you get away with just buying an Endpoint and as I recall, Sparkfun says no. I think the reason has to do with you require a termination but not being a network person that is beyond my knowledge of setting up networks.

A while back I posted that if you were using the National Weather Service and noticed it had quit, that was due to a lack of funds to purchase a piece of hardware that was long overdue for replacement.

New Year, new hardware.
You can pull multi-day or current so it is now up and running.

This is more of an announcement/awareness thing than a question but if anyone is using the weather.gov api to show various weather items, and have maybe noticed they aren’t working, due to a lack of funding, some component that had an End of Life several years past, finally went belly up and once the NWS gets some 2024 funding from our elected officials they will replace the dead hardware and get everything back up and running.

All my weather stuff on my MM is down and some NWS people have suggested sending emails if you are so inclined. They aren’t happy taking the heat for issues not in their control.

@rmonkey That is really really nice.

@sdetweil Dig that. First thought was “exactly what major value does that bring to the table?”
So loading Python packages from the PYPI package repository breaks Python.
That’s a good one.