For a screen, I would recommend looking into a used laptop screen and associated controller board. There’s a little bit more work involved, but should give you a lighter and thinner display device. There are a handful of magic mirror that used a laptop screen out there to get you started.

The screen will likely not cover the entire glass area. You’ll want black paint or black construction paper on the portion of the glass that isn’t covered by the screen.

@mwel1977 - I’m not sure of your job position or duties, but I think you can make a decent argument to your corporate management that you are expanding your skills and experience with Unix-like environments, plus your skills with virtual machines. If your company does anything with cloud computing or virtual desktops, you can make a strong case that you are using down time to increase your value to the company.

Running VMWare or MS Hypervisor on your laptop and spinning up a small Ubuntu server to experiment upon will teach you a lot of things unrelated to the Magic Mirror. If you really want to be sure, ask your supervisor if you can use your work laptop to teach yourself about virtual machines and Unix/Linux/Debian/Ubuntu. People with Unix skills are in high demand. People with experience with virtual machines are also valuable, especially in this age of cloud computing.

Now the downside: Anything you develop on your work laptop while at work belongs to your company. It’s not yours. So if you create a cool module for us, you don’t actually own it. Don’t expect that you do.

@sherloc987 - There are a handful of modules for MagicMirror that display photos. Some are from the files system, one from Google Photos, one from DropBox. Go to the Modules - Showcase - Entertainment section of this forum and browse a bit.

@ejach2000 - The tradeoff decisions in making a magic mirror are basically as follows:

You can get a cheaper mirror surface by going with two-way acrylic. I used TAP Plastics and it worked okay. The two way glass produced better results, but you will have to decide if the difference is worth the extra cost.

The other option is to purchase a two way mirror film and attach it to a piece of glass. This way takes patience and practice, but it is a decent way to save money.

Don’t try to combine two pieces of glass into one mirror. The seam between the pieces will be very visible and will annoy you.

You do not need a specific monitor. There are features that make the process easier for you during construction. Most importantly, IMHO, is that the power and HDMI connectors point down and not directly away from the screen. Secondly is the ability to accept an HDMI connection (lack of HDMI can be overcome with adapters).

HTH.

Has anyone found anything interesting in the logs? pm2 status MagicMirror?

@striiker said in Magic Mirror Blanks Several Hours:

When I experience this condition, I see no slowness while connected to ssh.

That makes me think it’s an electron problem. If you have no slowness during an SSH session, I would try the pm2 command above and see if something is kicking out error messages. Likewise, try the top command and see what your processor utilization level is, plus see if something is taking up an inordinate amount of resources.

@qbox83 - Aha! I have a thin sheet of acrylic I can use as an insulation layer. I can then reposition the two boards of the monitor and position the Pi where I need it. Thanks!

@paulb - I don’t have specific recommendations, but I can offer a technique. I put a small power strip inside my mirror that powers the Pi, monitor, and LED accent lights. The cord to the power strip is plugged into a smart outlet, which I can access via Alexa or the mobile app. One command shuts off the power strip and anything plugged into it.

I think I’m using a WeMo smart plug, but I have like five different brands in the house.

I was digging through my hard drive and found this picture I took of the 83" mirror that I ordered from TwoWayMirrors.com. I’m sure not every mirror is packaged quite like this… but if they need to, they’ll make it work.

You’re definitely off to a good start! I like the FLIR tool. I’m jealous. I don’t know why I would need one, but I want one now.

I notice that you took off the metal backing to your monitor. Did you have any concerns with that? I have to take the one off the mirror I’m building now because it kind of fell off during the bezel removal process. I haven’t done that before and I’m nervous I’ll short something.

WIth a little creative woodworking, you could route a channel along the frame. Similar to a rabbet, but an 8mm wide and 2mm deep channel could fit a string of LEDs. The lights would illuminate her face but the channel would keep them from washing out the acrylic & screen.