I hate to be the naysayer, but do remember that depending on your country you may not be able to sell Magic Mirrors as a business. The patent holder on the technology is a Japanese company, I believe. You can make them for personal use & gifts but you can’t sell them as a business without paying them royalties. @MichMich is probably the best person to ask about such things as I believe he went down the rabbit hole and looked into it.

Now, if you want tips on how to save money on your personal mirrors, that’s a great idea. I have found that careful browsing of thrift stores, pawn shops, government auctions and charity retail outlets (Habit For Humanity, Salvation Army, etc.) is a good place to get cheap (if older) LCDs.

Hi, how did you connect the sensor with the pi?

Hi, I’ve been busy with this problem for a long time until I found the solution. And it’s called RCWL-0516 Microwave Radar Sensor. Guys, forget PIR sensor, the RCWL-0516 you can completely obstruct in the frame behind the mirror. It works perfectly with paviro / MMM PIR sensor. You get 5 pieces for 8 € on Amazon. I hope I could help you. And forgive me my bad English. Regards

I feel it’s pertinent to say that I’ve improved my process a little bit as somewhat detailed in my own answer to my question on stack exchange diy here. I can’t seem to link to it because the automated system thinks it’s spam.

My results doing it that way are pretty good but still not perfect. I’ve been holding off on updating this post until I get the process down right.

I’ve made two serious attempts and both came out with bubbles.

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I think the problem the first time was a couple specs of stray sawdust. So the second time I brought it inside and was super clean. The second one actually came out worse though. I think the second one came out worse either because I didn’t lay the film on straight enough or because I used a thinner sheet of acrylic that maybe was flexing as I was squeegeeing out the solution.

What I have the most trouble with is separating the film from its backing layer and getting it onto the acrylic. I always mess that up one way or another. …maybe there’s a way to create a special jig that will make that easy?

My basic process is:

Spray the window (with the gila solution) Spray the film Separate the film (while spraying it) Do my best to get the film squarely onto the acrylic Use my fingers to flatten it out a little Squeegee it down a little better (starting from the center until close to the edge) Use a knife to trim the excess film off Get serious with the squeegee. I try to start from the center and move out towards the edges but by this time there are usually bubbles all over the place and the show is over anyhow.

How can I get a perfect application of the film? How thick of acrylic do you usually use? Do you do it with the acrylic parallel to the ground or do you hang it on a wall for this purpose? Any advice you have would be outstanding.

@boblazer said in Where do you find LCD's that are larger than 7"?:

One other side question. Has anyone tried splitting up the interface into multiple displays? Instead of using a giant 42" TV to display the time and a status message maybe you could use a few ~7" displays as second and third monitors and display it that way. I’m not sure how you would blend each lcd screen into the surrounding background of the mirror though.

I built a mirror with two 24" displays using a Raspberry Pi and a Fitlet. I considered using the Fitlet to drive both displays, but I couldn’t find a way to guarantee one instance of MagicMirror per display. In the end it was easier to drive each monitor separately. If you’re willing to go Windows, you might be able to pull it off.

I’m adding a third monitor to that mirror in February. Wish me luck!

(also: wait for large sales at Amazon, NewEgg, MicroCenter, BestBuy and the like. I picked up a 47" LCD monitor for like $87 on Black Friday)