Hello Mirror

Every morning our day begins by watching ourselves at least once in mirror before leaving our homes. We interact with it psychologically to find out how we look and how our attire is. Smart Mirror is one of the applications of Raspberry Pie. A computer screen embedded in mirror looks very futuristic

Project Title

Hello Mirror

Project Area of Specialization

Computer Science

Project Summary

Every morning our day begins by watching ourselves at least once in mirror before leaving our homes. We interact with it psychologically to find out how we look and how our attire is. Smart Mirror is one of the applications of Raspberry Pie. A computer screen embedded in mirror looks very futuristic. The Raspberry Pie stays at back scenes and controls the data displayed on mirror. While looking at mirror you can look at various notifications from social sites as well news, weather forecast and more things. Such mirrors can be programmed to work as AI and control home appliances by voice input.

Project Objectives

The goal of this project is basically to try to do something like the Android but in a Mirror. Basically, the mirror is looks like normal mirror but when someone stand in front of it the scene changes. The mirror provides a functional, user friendly and interactive UI to its user for accessing their social sites, messengers, etc. It has widgets for displaying the current whether conditions, Time, Events, Latest news headlines The Smart Mirror would help in developing smart houses with embedded artificial intelligence, as well as finding its applications in industries. Our project will mainly focus on the following objectives:

1. Voice control commands

2. Provide easier Home Automation

3. Display Date/Time

4. Display News Bulletin

5. Display Weather Forecast

6. Saves Time

Project Implementation Method

When I started the project, I figured the interface would not allow any direct interaction with using the mirror. This would result in grease and smudges on my shiny mirror, but more important: there are better devices for user interaction. I wanted the Smart Mirror to be a passive source of information.

What was even more important is the fact that the mirror should be usable as a mirror, and thus it should not be completely filled with (useless) information. Only the outer corners should be used for content. Leaving enough room to see my shiny self.

If figured I needed to following content to fulfill my need for information:

• A Compliment
  What’s better then to start your day with a nice compliment?

• Weather
  That shirt I’m wearing? Looks nice! But is it warm enough to wear a t-shirt?

• Clock and calendar
  Am I in a hurry? Or is there enough time to enjoy my reflection?

• News feed
  Should I only be worried about my shiny appearance? Or is there more to worry about?

Of course, there are plenty of possibilities for the future. But for now above list will suffice.

Benefits of the Project

The Smart Mirror would help in developing smart houses with embedded artificial intelligence, as well as finding its applications in industries. Our project will mainly focus on the following objectives:

1. Voice control commands

2. Provide easier Home Automation

3. Display Date/Time

4. Display News Bulletin

5. Display Weather Forecast

6. Saves Time

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Openweathermap.org

Openweathermap has an excellent API for free weather and forecast data. It allows you to do a query based on a location and specify what data is desired. In this case, I use two links: one for the current weather. And one for the forecast. 

iCal Calendar

iCloud allows you to share an calendar using the iCal format. Now, since javascript is not allowed to do such a request (because of Cross-site scripting security), I need to open this data via a PHP proxy. This is actually pretty easy. It’s only 3 lines of code:

<?php

    $url = 'https://p01-calendarws.icloud.com/ca/subscribe/1/mysupersecreticloudhash';

    echo file_get_contents($url);

This will make the calendar available on the same server as the interface, by just requestingcalendar.php.

The earlier mentioned iCal parser helps me to parse the information into usable information.

NOS News Feed

The news feed is just the RSS news feed of Holland’s public broadcasting cooperation. Unfortunately they don’t support a JSON format, therefore I use the FeedToJson plugin to convert the RSS data to JSON.

All other content, like the current date and time, and the compliments are all just some simple javascripts.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Core Industry

IT

Other Industries

Security

Core Technology

Internet of Things (IoT)

Other Technologies

Artificial Intelligence(AI)

Sustainable Development Goals

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com