So, a while back I was musing about whether a smart home would be better for the wife and I. She has several medical issues and being able to keep track of her, her medical appointments, the medications she takes, and any number of other things would be useful.
Adding automation and sensors around the house could be useful. Another useful thing to build might be a “magic mirror”. This project involves having a mirror in a frame that displays your daily schedule, the weather, the time, motivational or funny quotes, and other bits of information. You put a monitor connected to a Raspberry Pi behind a piece of one-way glass, then put the whole thing in a frame and mount it on the wall.
I came across a YouTube video that outlines a project for building such a device. It looks rather straightforward. The expensive parts are the monitor, the one-way piece of glass, and the Raspberry Pi. I have a Raspberry Pi computer already. While cleaning out the house I came across an old monitor sitting in one of the closets. I turned it on to make sure it worked (it did) so I could use it. That’s two out of the three. I’ll have to save up a bit to get a one-way piece of glass to use as the mirror.
Once you have the Raspberry Pi running, there is the Magic Mirror 2 software (https://magicmirror.builders/) you can install. This gives your mirror all the functionality for displaying things like the weather forecast or your daily schedule. Third-party developers have created hundreds of modules to extend the capabilities of your mirror. You can do financial news, regular news, music, time, and other fun shtuff. If you got the programming chops you can write your own modules to get the mirror to do what you specifically need.
I’m still investigating the possibilities and how the whole thing goes together, but I’m liking what I’m seeing so far.
So many things to do, so very little time to do them.
I hope all your projects are coming to fruition, my Hordeling.
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