I’ll have more on this in the next couple of days. But here’s a preview just to whet your appetite.

Now that photos are working again, here are some photos of the refreshed Magic Mirror Mark II. All three screens are active and the look is much cleaner.

And a close up of the switch.

IIRC, @michmich looked into offering this as a commercial product and he ran into patent and licensing problems. The laws of your country may vary, but the short version is you can’t offer a magic mirror as a commercial product without involving lawyers and giving the patent holders some sort of payment.

You may be able to make one for your friends as a favor, with them picking up the expense of the materials. But you won’t be able to turn this into a business without careful and professional legal advice.

I confess, after reading the name of the module I had a completely wrong impression of what it was going to do.

You know what? Even better:
https://youtu.be/6KSCDIaIgdA

First, I want thank @alexyak for his motioncontrol module. Unfortunately for me, it doesn’t work on my Mirror due to new security controls put in place by the Node.js team. Apparently it’s not a wise move to let client-side Javascript access the webcam attached to your server. Who knew?

In the end, I ended up seeking another solution. The Facial Recognition module didn’t work due to the reduction in light coming through the mirror itself. But I do get an image. I started browsing sites of people who have turned their Raspi into a security system. It turns out, someone ported the Motion framework to Raspberry Pi and called it MMAL-Motion.

After a lot of reading, I found a Wiki for MMAL Motion. Following the steps for Jessie, I did the following:

• Change to your home directory. cd ~
• Install the library dependencies (just copy & paste into the terminal. I wouldn’t want to do this by hand)
  sudo apt-get install -y libjpeg-dev libavformat56 libavformat-dev libavcodec56 libavcodec-dev libavutil54 libavutil-dev libc6-dev zlib1g-dev libmysqlclient18 libmysqlclient-dev libpq5 libpq-dev
• Download the precompiled binary archive file:
  wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ruqgv1h65zufr6/motion-mmal-lowflyerUK-20151114.tar.gz
• Uncompress the archive file
  tar -zxvf motion-mmal-lowflyerUK-20151114.tar.gz

This will put a configuration file called motion-mmalcam-both.conf and a folder called motion in your home folder. At this step you can test it if you like, but for my purposes I needed to make a few changes tot the config file. So, make a copy and edit the copy.
cp motion-mmalcam-both.conf motion.conf
nano motion.conf
I played around with the configuration quite a bit until I found one I liked. But for our purposes (turning the display on when someone comes near) you only have to make a few changes.
framerate 4 - run the detection video at 4 frames per second
threshold 2500 - increase the # of pixels to trigger the screen. We want them to get close to the mirror
minimum_motion_frames 2 - Motion must be detected in 2 consecutive frames (at 4 FPS)
event_gap 60 - This is important. This is how long in seconds after no motion the screen will turn off.
output_pictures off - Do not save images
ffmpeg_output_movies off - Do not record video
stream_port 0 - Turn off remote viewing
webcontrol_port 0 - Turn off HTTP control of camera
on_event_start vcgencmd display_power 1 - Important! This is the command to turn on the screen
on_event_end vcgencmd display_power 0 - Important! This is the command to turn off the screen

Save your motion.conf file and now you can test it out by entering ./motion -c motion.conf. If you stay very still for a minute, the screen should turn off. Move close to the mirror, and everything should come back after a couple seconds.

@seedhe - The module framework that @MichMich created is where the technique of hosting the mirror on a Pi really shines. While the Magic Mirror is more-or-less a customizable web page, the ability for the modules to call background processes adds a level of utility.

For example, I can put a static web page up on an Amazon cloud IP and just hit that from my mirror. It will display static data and maybe some things from various APIs, if I code it cleverly enough. But that’s about it.

With the OS working behind the scenes, I can display anything behind my firewall (IP cameras, weather stations, temperature sensors, PIR sensors, etc.). I can also plug in a camera and/or microphone and use the data from those devices in my modules.

It also allows you to scale up if you need to. A Raspi is pretty slick for its size and cost. But if you put something like a NUC behind it, you can use that processing power for some really cool features. Voice recognition, facial recognition, complex animations, etc.

@skr Because I’m a crap coder in Javascript.

Sorry for not helping earlier, folks. I was at a wedding and delivering my mirror as a gift. I’ll investigate and see if I can’t improve the mirror code.

You should not ever have to modify the compliments.js file. You should be able to pull it off with just modifications to the config.js file.

And the mirror was a hit.

This is a happy little module.

@supersook - Your mirror looks great! Nice work.

In my experience, the wood tends to expand a bit after you cut it, so it tends to push on the outside of the acrylic. While glass would be a better choice, you may wish to try opening up your tolerance by a hair. If you can get the acrylic to rest easily in the mirror, you may eliminate most of your distortion.

Although it looks like you don’t have a lot of distortion going on. You’re most of the way there.

@Lucker25 said in Building dashboard with touch controls:

If I don´t find a matching display + case the alternative would be integrating this into the door of my hanging cabinet.

That sounds like a very simple solution. You would just need to pull the cabinet door off the hinges, cut out a hole for the display, run a router along the inside edges if you’re feeling fancy, fabricate a bracket for the monitor and then attach the Pi & power to the inside of the door. If you’re feeling like you can make cuts within a 1/2 centimetre or so, you won’t even need a case for the monitor - just cut the opening slightly smaller than the screen size.

Although you may wish to mount the Pi on the inside wall of the cabinet. Up to you.

Most of the enclosures for the mirrors here are custom made by their creators. You might be able to get away with a pre-made touch screen monitor w/case that was designed for an embedded app (similar to a mall kiosk). I think www.adafruit.com sells the monitors and a handful come with cases.

For a kitchen dashboard, perhaps mounting a slim monitor underneath a cabinet. If you can find the right mount for it, it could swing up & away when you’re not using it. The wires can either be run along the back inside edge of the cabinet or put all the electronics deep in the cabinet and poke a hole through the bottom.

That would keep the woodworking down to a minimum.

Yes, I have and yes, it’s expensive. @twowaymirrors sold me a custom sheet of mirror glass that was 13" x 84" x 1/4". They had to build a custom crate for it too. But if anyone can do it, they can.

Link to mirror.

@xxLulaBelle - None of my mirrors have touch capability. Personally, I don’t understand why people want it. It will collect fingerprints and smears. But several people have built it and they seem happy with it.

A touchscreen monitor will work if you’re not building a mirror but instead are building a display with the framework. The reason is that the glass/acrylic that provides the mirror finish will interfere with the touch signals. In order to get touch capability, you’ll want a touch overlay that you can place on top of the mirror (with a regular monitor behind it).

More advice for you:

• Whatever monitor you purchase/acquire, be sure the HDMI ports face down.
• Use @sdetweil’s installation scripts when it comes to installing the Magic Mirror framework. (we’re both recommending this. That should be a hint)
• No shame in doing the software part long before building the mirror part. If you’ve never run a table saw, this is a good way to get an early success in.
• Mirror glass is better than mirror acrylic is better than mirror film on glass. With an accompanying difference in price. But it all works. Don’t get too hung up on the hardware aspect.
• Do not power your Pi off of the monitor’s USB ports.

@blacter - Okay, a couple things.

First, it’s best to use the markdown features of the board when posting code, rather than screenshots.

Second, you should obfuscate or hide your API keys, lest someone “borrow” them for their own use.

Third, the line obtained from https://iexcloud.io/console/tokens appears to be on its own line without a comment prefix (the // characters) so it is being evaluated by the interpreter. And because it’s a comment and not a setting, it’s probably barfing on that line.

Fourth, the code you quoted is missing a closing } symbol. You have one opened for the config: { line and another open for the { module: 'MMM-SingleStock', portion… but you only have one closing }.

I hope that gets you on your way.

Edited to add: Dammit, @Mykle1 beat me to it.

Wow! Great job on your mirror!

The first step is to see if someone has a web API you can use to find out the Saint of the Day. Do you know of one?

@BKeyport - Good to know, thanks.