Nearing Christmas Time

Christmas time was approaching, which meant it was time to think about gifts.

Well, Michelle is on top of her habits, loves to learn, loves beautiful design, appreciates thoughtfulness, likes sports, and adventures. Hmm...

Nothing came to me over Halloween weekend, so I put the gift hunt aside for a few weeks to cook.

Remembering the Smart Mirror

A bit before Halloween she showed me this cool smart mirror project made by Evan Cohen [1]. Well aware of my maker habits, she said "can you make me one, please please please? Make me one!" I said I'd think about it.

It was mid-november when I thought of the mirror idea again while cleaning up my electronics. I was puzzled at first and then...

I Saw the Light!

I could totally build a smart mirror. All I would have to do is combine my PiDock with a 2-way mirror and a bunch of laser-cut parts to make a frame!

My focus was set: I'd create an experience so that helps Michelle get ready in the morning and gives her information at a glance whenever she's in her room.

Well, there I was. I had the idea, a bunch of parts, and a bit of confidence that I could figure this out.

PiDock Footnote

I did a lot of related research for this project a few years ago. The main components came from a device that many in the Raspberry Pi community will remember: The Lapdock for Motorola ATRIX 4G.

Back in 2012 I stumbled upon the LapDock and made a Raspberry Pi laptop with one, called it a PiDock. I took apart a couple of the LapDocks figuring out how to disable the sketchy hall effect sensor the it used to activate stand-by. I got a great understanding of everything in the LapDock because of that experience.

[1] Evan Cohen's cool video and githhub page.