In 2016 we have touch screens on our refrigerators and digital cameras. We have motorized venetian blinds that connect to our tablets/watches/phones. We can manage more and more of our house (sound-, temp-, sight-, and even olfactory-systems; yes, we’re talking multi-sensorial household management here) from a single control. We have smart ovens, smart tables, smart coffee pots, smart toothbrushes… yes, we even have this last one, even our bathrooms are getting smart.
In short, we have figured out how to put sensors into things and thereby link things to apps. What does this mean? It means that suddenly everyone, in their personal lives, as in their professional lives, is talking about an internet of things (IoT). One of those things is … or is about to be, mirrors.
Technically there is not yet a fully embraced, mass marketed smart mirror. However, Reddit has been blowing up this year with would-be entrepreneurs who have designed their own. You can even find code for creating your own smart mirror on HYPERLINK “https://github.com/evancohen/smart-mirror”GitHub. And now the DIYers are popping up on medium.com. See here, for example. And also here. China-based company, UCN, is promoting specs on several models though these aren’t yet available in the US.
Our point is: smart mirrors are coming. You’ll be able to swipe left and right, check the weather, google image search “street fashion,” and email your colleagues, all while standing in your bathroom applying a growing number of anti-aging-products (here I speak from experience and mean not to offend). What this all actually means, like with the coming of the Apple Watch in 2015, is not yet entirely clear.
Maybe, like the Apple Watch, smart mirrors are meant to free you from your phone. We wonder, however, what this will mean for your family members standing in line on the other side of the door. Okay, okay, just kidding about this part. In fact, we think this is pretty cool. In the way that technological advancement is always pretty cool, and sometimes a bit confusing. Smart mirrors might even turn out to be pretty fundamental to our daily lives.
If you’re into smart interiors, or want to learn more, you can contact us here.