Magic Mirror

I've put together a relatively straightforward Magic Mirror so thought I would share how I did it.

If you don't know, a Magic Mirror is a mirror that displays information like weather, calendar events, or news alongside your reflection.

This is my second attempt at building a Magic Mirror. My first try was fun - I enjoyed setting up the Raspberry Pi and getting the code to work - but I lost steam when it came to framing it with the two-way glass and eventually gave up.

This time I've persevered and figured out a relatively simple way of putting together a frameless design.

I've included some (affiliate) links and costs below if you want to replicate what I have done 😁

Raspberry PI 3

First step is getting the software up and running, this is a lot simpler than you might think and a lot of fun thanks to the work of the community supporting MagicMirror2

I used a Raspberry PI 3 that I had lying around, I won't go into the detail of how I set that up as the documentation is very good and there are loads of tutorials on Youtube etc.

I used a few different modules including:

• MMM-Remote-Control Control of the mirror from a browser
  
• MMM-PIR-Sensor-Lite Managing monitor with PIR motion sensor (automatic standby when presence isn't detected)
• MMM-DHT-Sensor Display the current temperature and humidity

I plan to fiddle around with the config regularly to make sure that I keep everything up to date and running correctly!

Monitor

This is the part I dithered about for a long time 😏

A few factors influenced my decision:

• I didn't want or need a huge mirror
• I wanted it to be relatively cheap
• I wanted it to be simple to work with: connectivity, power etc
• Needed ports in a place that wouldn't cause an issue in the overall design
• I wanted it as slim as possible
• I was considering a desktop design as well as wall mounted
• I wanted it to be a useful monitor if I decided not to keep it as a Magic Mirror

In the end I chose this Yodoit Portable Monitor and have had no regrets.  

• It cost me £79 at the time of purchase 
• is a nice size
• plenty bright enough
• very thin 
• has VESA mounting holes which have proved very useful!  
• has a cover/stand for desktop mounting

3D Printing

I own a Creality Ender 3 v2 3D printer so figured I could use it to print some mounts for the Raspberry Pi and possibly something to use to mount the whole Magic Mirror to the wall.

If you don't have access to a printer I think you could easily find an appropriate VESA wall mount and, to keep it simple, hot glue (easily removeable) the Pi and sensors to the rear of the monitor.

To mount the mirror to the wall I printed off one of these at 75% x and y scale.  I think there are probably some remixes that are better but I was able to use this one without too much trouble. This screws directly to the VESA mounts on the monitor.

To house the sensors I printed one of these DHT 11 cases and this PIR Sensor Case.

I then used a combination of this Raspberry Pi 3 Case and created my own remix of the case bottom so that I could mount the case to the VESA mounts on the monitor as well.  My remix also moves the case to the thinnest part of the monitor so that helps keep the overall thickness of the Magic Mirror to a minimum. I also added a small tab that the DHT-11 sensor case could attach to.

Cabling

The ports on the monitor exit at the side however I didn't want the USB-C and HDMI plugs sticking out too far so I searched and found some adaptors to re-route the sockets to the rear.

This HDMI Adaptor (£7.88) works great as it also converts from HDMI to HDMI Mini so I could use an existing HDMI cable I had. 

These USB-C Adaptors (£5.99) cleared the monitor case perfectly pointing the socket back to the rear of the monitor.

For power I decided to buy a new Anker Charger (£12.79). This gave me two ports, USB-C for the monitor and USB-A for the Raspberry Pi.

For flexibility when it came to mounting and positioning the mirror I went for new, 3 metre cables to run from the charger to the mirror; for the Raspberry Pi I got this USB-A to Micro USB Cable (£3.29), and for the monitor I got this USB-C to USB-C Cable (£3.99)

To keep all the cabling tidy I bought this Braided Cable Tidy (£10.99) It's got a very tight weave, great stuff!

Here's a picture of the rear all assembled, I think it worked out really well to keep the depth of the mirror to a minimum and keep everything neatly arranged. FYI the PIR Sensor case just sits wedged to the side between the wall and the rear of the mirror glass, it protrudes a little to make sure it can capture any movement.

The Raspberry Pi case and Wall mount end up flush

Glass

Having read plenty of posts on the Magic Mirror Forum I knew that I wanted proper glass rather than Acrylic or using a mirrored film; both of those seemed the cheap way to do it but not very effective.

I ordered a sample of 6mm Pilkingtons Mirroview 75/20 Generation Two from www.mirrorsandglass.co.uk who are based in Stockport in the UK for £6 delivered.  Customer service was great, I accidentally ordered two of the same samples and they automatically refunded me for one of them.  

Glad I got the sample; was good to have the piece of mind before ordering the full-size piece 😌

I ordered the glass with no border or holes and to make sure that the cable adaptors were covered I added an extra 15mm in each direction, so the final dimensions were 385mm (x) by 250mm (y).

This came to a cost of £66 delivered in the UK.  Glass was extremely well packaged, no way that is getting broken in transit 👏

Assembly

To block light getting through the overlap between the glass and the monitor I just used some Black Electrical tape (£1.20) I picked mine up locally but similar to this. It does end up being partially visible up close but not enough to bother me at all.

To stick the glass to the monitor I wanted something simple that could be disassembled if required.  I read that 3M VHB tape would do the trick, something like this.  But I noticed that some Go-Pro helmet mounts I had were 3M VHB so cut one into strips and used that instead 😂

Conclusion

Overall I'm really happy with the end result, looks nice and tidy as I've hidden the cable behind a calendar on my wall.

Total depth ended up being 4cm/40mm so doesn't intrude too much at all!

Total cost came to £197.13 which I think, bearing in mind all of it can be re-purposed, is pretty reasonable for a fun project!

Enjoy! 😁