DIY Smart Mirror (that doesn't steam up!)

if you're anything like me you'll have thought at some point is you wipe the steam off the mirror trying to shave as you're attempting to catch up on your YouTube feed wouldn't it be great if I could just watch YouTube in the mirror and that it had magic properties so that it would never steam up well I expect that somewhat unlikely but I'm gonna help you out anyway and show you how to build the best gadget you never thought you needed which is a DIY smart mirror with a built-in hidden screen system and powerful stereo speakers so you can watch youtube videos whilst you're doing your teeth or having a shave it's also got the ability to completely eradicate any steam buildup and it works reliably without using electricity it's far from magic but it does work brilliantly so stick around to see exactly how to build it this video is sponsored by harry's with refills starting from just 2 dollars get razors and other shaving products delivered straight to your door every two three or five months for the ultimate shave visit the link in the description for more info so the first thing to get going with is building the frame for the mirror itself but for the de misting method to work it needs to double as a clamping system which you'll see the purpose of in just a minute because of this we'll be constructing it from scratch using medium density fiberboard known as MDF which can be bought from most hardware stores and cut into strips like you see here one set of strips is made out of slightly thicker board yet is cut to be slightly less wide this is so that it can fit onto the wider flatter pieces to make a lip wood blue is perfect for sticking them together and hold them in place whilst it dries I recommend using lots of pegs once they are dry we can now cut them down to the required size with a 45 degree angle for each cut you can do this by hand if you like but for best results I recommend using a miter saw I found this old rusty one in a friend's garage after giving it an oil it actually worked beautifully more wood glue can be used to join these pieces together and a good way of holding them in place as it dries is to use staples which can be easily pulled out again once it's set so with the frame almost complete now we need to get another piece of fiber board to fit onto the back holding this in place with some clamps we need to add a few pilot holes that go far enough through to mark the back of the frame once the back is removed these marks on the frame can be widened being careful not to go all the way through to the front however this will later allow some threaded inserts to be added which will in turn add some good strong threads for machine screws to be utilized for the clamping system before we screw these in place however we need to give it a lick of paint as fiber board is well rather fibrous it does require sealing before being painted to do this you could use a watered-down PVA mix but I prefer to use dedicated MDF primer I recommend doing two coats of this sanding down well between each coat once that's done a few coats of normal undercoat can be added again sanding it down to make it super smooth with that done the final top coat can be painted on and this needs to be a gloss type so that it will resist moisture well as the final mirror will of course be used in a wet environment with it dry it should be looking something like this and the threaded inserts can be added onto the back things are really going to take shape now as it's time to add the mirror surface for which will need a two-way mirror these leave some of the light to pass through while reflecting the rest meaning that bright objects behind the mirror can be seen through it as you can probably tell purely down to time constraints I only have an acrylic version here which means that it is somewhat flexible this wouldn't pose a problem for a standard smart mirror but due to the D misting method this project uses it is prone to bending which distorts the reflection so I'd say it's an absolute necessity to go with a toughened properly Murrah instead as it will always be rock-solid and flat and not much more expensive now for the D misting method to work we need to make a watertight chamber behind this mirror for which will first need lengths of solid rubber o-ring gasket cord this can be inserted into the frame and cut down to size joining it up with superglue to make a complete seal while this joint isn't perfect it shouldn't matter too much so long as it's at the top of the mirror as it will be above the waterline for the other side of the chamber we will need a sheet of non mirrored acrylic but before fitting it we need to add some black vinyl wrap to it being black this will later restore a lot of contrast to the mirror making it look like a normal mirror rather than a 2-way one it can just be placed on top of the gasket and the whole thing can for now be put to one side as it's time to work on the back panel starting with adding the screen this particular one is from an old laptop and to drive an image to it I purchased a separate driver board from eBay which allows you to use it like a standard monitor I have a video specifically on the topic of rigging up old laptop screens like this so if you need more information you can find a link to it in the description regardless this needs to be positioned on the back panel and marked out with a pencil to cut this out a hole needs to be first drilled somewhere within its perimeter and a jigsaw can then be used to cut it out by the way let me know in the comments if you want to see me make a video about my recommendations for tools like this as I may do a couple of videos on the topic if the sufficient interest so once it's cut out the screen itself should be able to drop in easily as you see here whilst we're cutting things out is a good time to make a bracket for the mirror to hang off the wall from to do this I drilled a small hole in a piece of aluminium and then cut to it with a hacksaw to make a slot this could then be screwed to a block of MDF utilizing some washers to push it away from the block surface which allows room for the head of a screw so that it can slide up in place this is how it will later be mounted onto the wall I then glued this larger block to some smaller ones so there will be sufficient room for the rest of the components when the final mirror gets mounted onto the wall and then screwed it to the back panel this can now be painted it in a similar way to the frame only this time of course it won't be seen so you don't have to put as much effort into making a good finish for it with that done we can now start working on the mirrors power system electricity in a bathroom I hear you cry well the voltage and power levels will be so low it's safe for a humid environment as we're merely going to power it with an off-the-shelf power bank this one supports USB power delivery spec so can output 12 volts if told to do so by a little USB C power board and should power the mirror for about 30 days assuming half an hour daily usage to hold the battery in place I designed a little 3d printed bracket for it which I glue it in place along with the USB plug so that the battery could be slid in and out if you don't have a 3d printer there are lots of other materials this could be made of and I would suggest just using MDF pieces adjacent to this I glued in place a power switch one end of which could be soldered to the positive output of the power board next we can take a power socket and solder the negative side of it to the negative output of the power board and the positive side of it to the other wire from the switch testing this out with a multimeter you should see a voltage output coming from it and pressing the button on the board cycles through the output voltages and we'll leave it on 12 volts with that done we can drill a hole on each side of the support bracket and the mark through these onto the acrylic that we added the black vinyl to earlier these marked points can now be carefully drilled out for the larger drill bit being methodical so it's not to crack the acrylic using a knife the surrounding vinyl can be removed so that a tubing nozzle can be glued in place with some superglue these are what will later let the water in and out so need to be properly sealed whilst we're working on this acrylic layer we also need to use some tape and mark out the perimeter of the screen cut out to only offset inwards slightly this is so that the vinyl will hide the screens bezels so that just the LCD part of the screen can be seen through the final mirror this too needs to be scored with a knife so that it can late to be filled away and to get the curved corners I just scored along the edge of something circular for now though we'll leave this in place so that the acrylic layer is kept free from dust so now it's time to clamp the whole thing together with the back panel in place there should be about a 1 to 2 millimeter gap all the way around the edge this is because the gasket is lifting up the back acrylic layer and the idea is for the machine screws to squash the gasket and clamp it in place making the required watertight seal with that done all the way around it's time for the final step which is to make the powerful speaker system as the speaker system needs to be very thin so that it can fit onto the back of the mirror we'll be using some small 1 inch speaker drivers I salvaged mine from some speakers originally designed for old Sony Walkmans as they use some weird proprietary connector they're basically useless these days which is why I decided to disassemble them to recover the speaker drivers however these small drivers can be bought individually from eBay and you can find a link for that in the description you absolutely don't need as many speakers as I have here but the more you do use the louder and full of the sound will be freeze I used a 3d printer to make a bracket for these speakers to mount on to but alternatively it would be easy enough to make this out of MDF utilizing a spade bit to make any required holes once wired up a variety of MDF pieces can now be used to construct an enclosure around them and you may want to use a bit of stuffing inside to help to produce a smoother sound again as this will be on the back you don't need to give it too much attention when painting it and once finished it should look something like this the gap in the middle between the two speaker enclosures is the perfect space for housing the driver board for the screen which are mounted in place with some long PCB pillar standoffs the back of my particular board actually has a five volt output to which I soldered a microUSB connector this is so that it can feed this five volts to power a chromecast which is the backbone of the mirror's video functionality as it can receive a video stream from your smartphone and then push this to the display board when idle this also shows the time and current weather which is super handy all that's needed now is an amplifier to power the speaker's this particular one has all of the input and output pins marked so is easy to wire up and it can receive his audio signal from the display boards headphone socket so before fitting this completed rig to the back panel we can first peel off the vinyl that was caught earlier so that the screen can be seen through both acrylic layers now holding the screen in place is fairly straightforward I just used some tape on the sides and then some little foam pads to lightly press it against the acrylic when the speaker array gets put on top and screwed in place after the power socket from the USB board has been plugged in the mirror is almost ready to use but we do need some tubing to fit over those nozzles we added earlier these will let hot water in and out of the internal watertight chamber for the D misting effect so one tube needs a cap molding around it so that it can fit onto a hot tap while the other one can act as an overflow with that done the mirror is now complete and looks very smart and minimal from the front with it off there's no internal emitted light so it looks 100% like a normal mirror and all that's left to do now is to take it and hang it up in your chosen location turning it on the chromecast will boot up and you'll be able to connect to it from your smart phone and select whatever videos you want to play on the mirror and it looks super cool with the curved edges audio is loud and clear as well and can easily overcome the sound of a shower so that you can listen to music or podcasts as you get ready for your day [Music] a steamy bathroom isn't an issue either as once hooked up to a hot tap the mirror can be filled with warm water which in turn heats up the front mirror surface making it impossible for it to steam up for quite some time nice the intention here is for the mirror always contain water and for it to be refreshed with warm water whenever you want to use it this method was chosen because it doesn't involve high power electricity with heated elements so is inherently safer for a DIY project in the bathroom and the water doesn't block the screens image like heated elements would it is certainly quite novel but it works and because of that I say why not so if you're wondering why I'm particularly clean-shaven for this video it's because it's been sponsored by Harry's Harry's is a subscription-based shaving company set up in 2013 when founders Jeff and Andy worked like most men I expect federal of paying for overpriced and over designed razors so they raised some money bought a factory in Germany and have since been selling razors at a fair price to millions of men the starter set includes a weight of handle with textured rubber grip and five blade razor cartridge foaming shave gel and a travel cover to protect your blades when you're on the move refills start at only $2.00 per cartridge and they're delivered straight to your door at a time schedule that suits your routine the quality German engineered blades ensure a closed smooth shave to keep you looking smart and presentable so to redeem a trial set for just three dollars visit harrys.com slash DRI perks and you'll be supporting the channel by doing so oh and another thing that's really important is that Harry's donates 1% of sales to support men's mental health charities which is super important as it's something that's often overlooked so again that's Harry's com / DIY perks and you could have a shave as a close as mine so that's it for this video I hope you've enjoyed this and I hope you have fun making your own smart mirror because honestly it's one of the coolest projects I've done for this channel and I think you'd enjoy it if you built one too so other than that I'm at you've been watching DIY perks and I hope to see you next time goodbye for now

Channel: DIY Perks

Views: 4,519,109

Keywords: diy, smart, mirror, tv, screen, dashboard, technology, diy perks

Id: puFSdfIRNIw

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 29 2019