Google Engineer Turns His Boring Bathroom Mirror Into A 'Smart Mirror'

Imagine a world where you get all the important updates and information while brushing your teeth; well it is pretty much crafted into reality by a Google Engineer Max Braun. He has developed a smart Android-powered high-tech bathroom mirror which displays the date, time, weather and news headlines while you brush your teeth, and it even has voice search support to boot. What’s more the prototype device is pretty much assembled using individual parts fairly easy to procure (two-way mirror, a display panel a controller board, and a bunch of components and arts & crafts supplies.)


To the right of where the user’s face would be, there’s the time and date. To the left is the current weather and a 24-hour forecast with some recent news headlines. The User Interface uses simple Android APIs with Forecast for the weather and the Associated Press for news. The device updates automatically and features an open-ended voice search support.



Behind the looking glass, Braun’s mirror display hardware is only a few millimeters thick. An Amazon Fire TV stick, lodged inside the medicine cabinet, runs the display, while Android code coordinates the information on screen.

The prototype needs more of up-gradation and tweaking, admits Braun as he still has to work more on the software with experimentation on different devices to run it (Chromecast, Nexus, Fire TV Stick). He also plans to add more functions and features that work with Google Now, including traffic updates and reminders.



The device can be said to be an early prototype of Google Now Mirror, and is quite ingenious, though there seems a long way to go; for it to be a truly smart mirror.

Source: #-Link-Snipped-#