SmartMirror

Motion controlled SmartMirror showing time and temperature in background with the possibility of adding any widget to the menu. The camera is behind the two-way mirror to get the best possible look. The screen and camera are managed by a raspberry pi. The motion is managed by a server running in python with OpenCV, the server web is in NodeJS.

Preview

Showing the display of the main menu and a use case on the widget Cinema (movie times of my local theater)

       

Show full webm preview - https://gfycat.com/UnsungBlueAmericanshorthair

Capacities

• Recognition of gestures : palm, thumbs up/down, slide up/down/right/left
• Time and outside temperature
• Widgets :
  • Photo : take a photo and upload it to Dropbox
  • Map : display local Google Map
  • Cinema : movie time of local theater
  • DoodleJump : play the game (hard with the latency)
  • News : show international news

Debugging

The motion server can't recognize gestures on a new environment : lights, hand colors... affect the process, that's why by launching the test.py file and tweak the HSV min/max values and others configs properly you can set it up for your home. To begin the tracking make an open palm like shown in the picture below.

Show webm preview

Dependencies

• Software :
  • OpenCV 2.x
  • Python 3.x
  • NodeJS
• Hardware :
  • Two Way Mirror
  • Raspberry pi
  • Camera (I'm using the NoIR but any camera should do)
  • LED Monitor (Preferably that cover the whole surface of your two way mirror)

Building

• Web server :
  • npm install
  • node server.js
  • go to http://localhost:3000
• Motion server :
  • Install OpenCV 2.x and cv2 wrapper for python (should be in the opencv package)
  • pip install numpy
  • pip install tornado
  • python test.py for debug infos or python main.py for silent process
  • config.py for the tracking settings
    • To use the Pi Camera set useCameraBoard.piCamera in config.py to true and install the package picamera pip install "picamera[array]"

Notes

The motion server was made in python to learn the language, but it should have been made in C/C++ to gain execution speed and flowness in the gestures recognitions. Also, python environment kinda sucks at the moment, the difficulty to set it up for python3 + opencv2 + windows and then linux was exhausting, I don't recommend.