I looked into this as well and came to much the same conclusion as @KirAsh4. USB ports on the monitors added a significant expense and couldn’t provide the power for the Pi.

If you were going to power another accessory from the monitor’s USB, it might make sense. I believe one mirror builder is running external speakers from his monitor’s USB jack. You could probably run an LED strip for accent lighting from it.

There’s nothing technically stopping you from leaving the monitor in its bezel. There are a couple mirrors that have done so. There are some additional downsides of which you should be aware:

• The bezel will push the monitor away from your glass, slightly. In my first mirror, this distance is noticeable but not a deal breaker.

• Any lights on the front of the bezel will have to be covered so as not to project.

• Getting to the monitor controls may be an issue. In my case, I was able to move the switches to the outside of the box after I removed the bezel.

• You may run into space complications, depending on the thickness of your box. Removing the case for the monitor will free up some room.

These are, truth be told, minor considerations. If you’re willing to deal with these issues, there’s nothing stopping you.

Greetings! My first mirror project is destined to be a wedding present for a friend of my wife. It’s been a steep learning curve, but I’m happy with the result. However, this situation presents a challenge for me, the Linux novice.

I would like to be able to get the mirror to update without VPN access to the mirror itself. I’m not sure of their wireless network, but I don’t think I can reliably find its IP address and it’s unknown whether or not their home network will allow VPN connections anyway. So my thought was I could create a Git repository that would represent the installation of the mirror on their RPI. As I push code to master, I would like the Pi to update itself and install new modules, upgrade code and so forth.

I think this will do the trick, but Git and I have a mutually hostile relationship. If I fork Mich’s code to my own account, I can update it without interfering with the rest of you guys. If I then fork every module that I wish to install and clone from these forks, I can update any module in my repository. I am just now investigating submodules in Git and this may be the way to go. But I’m not sure.

Keeping the modules updated would be a simple cron job that I would run at 2 AM every day. It would do a pull from my forks and update to new code whenever I pushed to my fork.

Am I missing anything? Is there an easier solution? Is this actually a solution? Can anyone explain submodules to me in a way that 1) I can understand, and 2) I can implement?

Thanks!

I completed my box construction yesterday. My solution to the monitor-is-smaller-than-box problem was to build an internal bracing system using a couple of channels for the edge of the monitor. It sounds more complicated than it is.

Monitor braces:

Everything in place:

Sorry for the delay. Here’s the relevant portion of my config:

{
     module: 'twitControl',
     position: 'middle_left',
          config: {
               maxNumTweets: 3,
               consumer_key: '[redacted]',
               consumer_secret: '[redacted]',
               access_token_key: '[redacted]',
               access_token_secret: '[redacted]'
               }
},

@Crookedsoul The modules that come with the Magic Mirror software can be found in ~/MagicMirror/modules/default/[name of module] (assuming you ran through the tutorial and didn’t change anything).

Any of the modules that you download from the community (Weatherbug, Instagram, Tides, etc.) need to be installed in their own folder in the modules folder. The positioning of any module is handled by the config.js script located at ~/MagicMirror/config/config.js. In addition to location information, you’ll also define most of the module’s configuration there as well. Think of it as configuration parameters that you’re passing into the module code, so you need to specify those parameters while you’re telling the Magic Mirror system to load up the module.

That has to be the cleanest, most organized back of a magic mirror here. Looks great.

@chase Yes. The sample config file should at least show you the clock and the basic compliments. If you update it with your openweathermap key it should show you weather. Curious.

Also, yes the URL should contain the 8080 port.

MichMich usually recommends this tutorial: Complete Setup Tutorial

@deadherring I have not. But I do want to report that I am having the same issue.

Do we have a generic video file playing module?