Skip to main content

DIY smart mirrors are still irresistible, and this one has a touchscreen

DIY smart mirrors are still irresistible, and this one has a touchscreen

Share this story

Every few weeks a new homespun smart mirror pops up on Reddit. The formula is pretty staid by now: put an LCD and a Raspberry Pi behind a one-way mirror, and now you have a weather widget to look at while you brush your teeth. There are even GitHub repos to do the software work for you. And yet I always click on each new project. It's always worth an upvote.

Engineer Ryan Nelwan went his own way. His project involves a rather large touchscreen mirror (smudges ahoy!), and some bespoke UI design. Swipe with two fingers to change the volume, rotate with two fingers to change the temperature, and drag a YouTube video to the right side of the screen to dismiss it. It's not a whole operating system, or, like, Minority Report. But it's still kind of great.

The real question is: when are we going to be able to buy an Alexa-powered, Ryan Nelwan-designed touchscreen smart mirror at Walmart? The people have spoken. We want smart mirrors.