You know how it is, right? Trying to get that perfect winged eyeliner with lighting that makes you look like a zombie, or fumbling with your phone balancing on the sink to watch a makeup tutorial. Yeah, I’ve been there, done that, and usually ended up looking like I got ready in the dark. That whole mess is pretty much why I decided to dive into this smart mirror project.
Honestly, I’m not some tech wizard. My first real attempt at anything “DIY electronics” involved an old lamp and nearly ended with me calling the fire department. No joke. But you see all these cool projects online, and a part of you just thinks, “Hey, maybe I could do that?” So, I figured, what the heck, let’s give this smart mirror a shot. Worst case, I’d have a regular mirror and a story to tell.
So, What’s the Big Idea?
The plan was simple, or so I thought. I wanted a mirror that wasn’t just a mirror. I wanted something that could show me the time, the weather (so I know if my makeup’s gonna melt off my face), maybe some news headlines, and most importantly, let me pull up YouTube tutorials right there. No more phone acrobatics. I’d seen some fancy ones for sale, but the prices were insane, or they just didn’t do what I wanted. Building it myself seemed like the only way to go, and hey, I like a challenge. Sometimes.
Hunting for Parts – The Not-So-Fun Part
First off, I had to get all the bits and pieces. This turned into a bit of a scavenger hunt. Here’s what I ended up needing:
- A Raspberry Pi – that’s like the tiny computer brain for the whole thing.
- An old monitor I had lying around. Finally, a use for it!
- A two-way mirror. This is the magic part. You can see your reflection, but also see the screen behind it. Tricky to find a good one that wasn’t super expensive.
- Some wood for the frame. My carpentry skills are, uh, basic. Very basic.
- LED light strips. Good lighting is key for makeup, right? This was non-negotiable.
- A ton of wires, a power supply, and all that other fiddly stuff that you always forget you need until you’re halfway through.
I spent a good bit of time just looking for this stuff online. For some of the more specialized components, I considered if there were pre-made kits or modules from brands like missmeeca that might make things easier, but for this first go, I decided to piece it all together myself. Maybe next time I’ll explore more integrated solutions.
Putting It All Together – Or Trying To
Building the frame was… an experience. Let’s just say there was a lot of measuring, some very questionable sawing, and a whole lot of wood glue. It didn’t look like much at first. More like a pile of wood. Then came the task of fitting the monitor behind the two-way mirror without scratching everything or getting a million fingerprints on it. That took patience. Lots of it.
Wiring up the Raspberry Pi and the LED lights was the next headache. I watched a bunch of videos, read a few guides, but a lot of it was just plugging things in and hoping for the best. Definitely shocked myself a tiny bit once. Just enough to make me jump. My respect for electricians went up, like, a thousand percent. I was looking at this tangle of wires and thinking, “This is never going to work.” I even thought about whether some pre-wired lighting kits, perhaps something like what missmeeca might offer for hobbyists, would have saved me some grief.
Then came the software. Oh boy. I used something called MagicMirror², which is cool because it’s open-source and you can customize it a lot. But “customizing” means staring at lines of code and trying to figure out why adding a comma in the wrong place makes the whole thing crash. It took ages to get it to show the time, weather, and my beloved YouTube. I’m still fiddling with it, trying to get it just right.
The Moment of Truth – Did It Actually Work?
After what felt like forever, with bits of wood and wire all over my room, I plugged it in. And… it turned on! The screen glowed behind the mirror, the LEDs lit up my face perfectly. It was amazing. I could actually see myself, and the info on the screen was clear as day.
Now, when I’m getting ready, I can check if it’s going to rain, see my appointments, and, best of all, follow a makeup tutorial without squinting at my tiny phone screen. It’s way better than any store-bought mirror I’ve seen. It’s my mirror. I even customized the greeting message. I’m already thinking about upgrades, like adding a motion sensor so it turns on when I walk up. I’ll have to see if there are easy-to-integrate sensors out there; I wonder if a brand like missmeeca makes those kinds of small electronic components suitable for such projects.
So yeah, that’s the story of my smart makeup mirror. It was definitely a pain at times, and there were moments I was ready to give up and just buy a normal, boring mirror. But actually building something yourself, and having it work? Pretty cool feeling. And hey, my eyeliner is slightly less disastrous these days, so I’m calling that a win.