With a two-way mirror, a controller board, a display panel, components, arts and crafts supplies and a lot of know-how at hand, Googler Max Braun created the only logical thing to do: a smart Android-powered bathroom mirror.
The nifty device offers the date, time and weather through Forecast along with some news headlines via the Associated Press. It automatically brings the latest updates and features voice search support. In other words, it can be considered an early prototype of a Google Now mirror.
Based on the image, the weather is on the left and above the news headlines. The date and time are positioned on the right side of the mirror.
According to Braun, he did this because he wanted his bathroom mirror to be like the "future we were promised in the movies." He tried to look for a similar product to what he had in mind, but there didn't seem to be any out on the market.
"There doesn't seem to be anyone selling the product I was looking for. The individual parts, however, were fairly easy to get. A number of people have done similar custom builds recently, but I had something different in mind," Braun says.
Of course, the current device is not yet final. Braun says that he plans to add more functions and features that work with Google Now, including traffic updates and reminders, to name a few.
Braun has managed to develop a fully functional display that sports only a few millimeters in thinness. The software still has a long way to go, as the user interface is currently on a couple hundred lines of code.
With that said, he has already attempted to use some devices to run it. First, he tried out Chromecast and moved on to Nexus Player and Fire TV Stick, which is the latest one he experimented with. He also says he still needs to settle on a platform and tidy up the innards of his creation, noting that it's a little messy.
Imagine a world where you get all the important updates and info while brushing your teeth. Pretty nice, huh?
It's also worth mentioning that this is comparable to the magic mirror powered by Raspberry Pi and eBay's magic mirror shopping technology back in 2014. Braun may have taken things up a notch with this smart Android bathroom mirror, and it would be interesting to see how far this idea can go.
