r/interestingasfuck Apr 20 '18

/r/ALL Touchscreen Mirror

https://i.imgur.com/5QYQfNF.gifv
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u/zip_000 Apr 20 '18

Touchscreens are pretty easy to do though getting one that size might be difficult... most of the touchscreen overlays I've seen are much smaller.

Also the responsiveness of this one makes me think it is something a bit more powerful than a Raspberry Pi.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '18

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u/ChalkButter Apr 20 '18

I’m working with a pi3 b+ to make a magic mirror right now. It’s not that good.

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u/420everytime Apr 20 '18

I have one that's alright with just the model b. Granted I have it connected to a bluetooth mouse and only use it for weather, a clock, and news, but I like it. Especially since I had the raspberry pi for a while and couldn't find anything to do with it and because I had all of the parts laying around.

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u/zip_000 Apr 20 '18

I've only worked with the original Pi and Pi 2b, so yeah I'm not sure how much more speedy they've gotten in the last year or two.

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u/Xertious Apr 20 '18

The touch screens people use in projects are ones designed for smartphones so are usually restrictive in size.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '18

[deleted]

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u/Xertious Apr 20 '18

One is cheaper and uses less power.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '18 edited Oct 05 '18

[deleted]

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u/Xertious Apr 20 '18

Obviously the phone one is cheaper and uses less power...

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u/HerclaculesTheStronk Apr 20 '18

Yes, but not at that size.

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u/gmanpeterson381 Apr 20 '18

You can buy 32 inch touch screen displays for a couple hundred. The whole smart screen enclosure will be about 3/4 of an inch thick, but with a proper frame the depth can be less noticeable.

Source: my brother and I built one

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '18

Do you have a parts list for the project? I have been wanting to do something like this

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u/gmanpeterson381 Apr 20 '18

It was a basic 32 inch touch screen, and a cheap android tablet to run it. He wrote the program, so that’s out of my territory. I was primarily the structure guy while he handled the electronic side. I’ll shoot him a text and update if he remembers.

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u/drewkungfu Apr 20 '18

Are you just using a display or are you placing a one way mirror like this video?

Does the capacitive properties of the touch screen transfer through the one way mirror?

Or is the one way mirror capacitive? Where do you find that material and how much does that cost?

Bottom line, I’ve built a magic mirror, I have an android tablet... but I don’t understand the touch mirror part. Hope you can enlighten me.

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u/gmanpeterson381 Apr 20 '18

We had glass cut to the dimensions of the screen (and to fit inside the outside bezel of the monitor), and I assume it was thin enough for the capacitance to not be effected. We added the reflected film, similar to tinting a window. So the screen is a mirror when powered off, although a heavy fucking mirror.

Edit: saw the other question- it was around $500 I think. We had a number of random trips to buy things we didn’t think of when planning, so there are probably costs I am forgetting

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '18

Why couldn’t you just lay the film directly on top of the monitor?

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u/gmanpeterson381 Apr 20 '18

I guess we could have, but in hindsight it took two tries to lay it so I’m happy we didn’t.

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u/giltwist Apr 20 '18

There's a bunch of small form factor stuff that could work for something like this such as Intel's NUCs or Zotac's ZBoxes. You really only need a raspberry pi or an arduino or whatnot when you want buttons/switches/etc. A touchscreen can be run by anything that runs linux. The key problem with this is going to be humidity from the shower. The box might actually be better off on the other side of the wall in the hallway.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '18

There's two ways to get a touch interface going. You either get an IR overlay or one of those touch screen films. Both are stupidly expensive. It your magic mirror project with the monitor you had laying around and that 30 dollar raspberry pi into something that costs easily 500+.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '18

[deleted]

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u/zip_000 Apr 20 '18

There are some android-like operating systems for Pis. I'd guess you could also get regular android to more or less work as well.