Best Monitor To Use For Your Smart Mirror
Worried about what would be the best monitor for your smart mirror? That is definitely not out of place. The first time you come in contact with a Smart Mirror, you are amazed at the beautiful technology it is. Traditional mirrors have been with us for the best part of 200 hundred years and have been luxury pieces of decoration. Now, add to it all of this hardware technology and you have one of the most beautiful products with high potential of it being a magic mirror monitor like you see in the sci-fi movies.
A Smart Mirror is unlike any other Mirror as it is manufactured with a lot of Hardware-Technology like temperature sensors, a Monitor for LED illumination and Mirror LCD Display for information, internet connection, touch capabilities, and a brain that is an internet of things Operating System
The monitor you use will play an important part in the overall quality of your smart mirror. So, getting the best monitor for a magic mirror is of utmost importance. Pretty much any monitor will be suitable for a smart mirror as it will be able to display different kinds of information in the form of widgets, such as weather, time, date, news updates, upcoming calendar appointment and more. In fact, you can make such a smart mirror right now with the ideal best monitor for smart mirror and that’s what we’re going to show you.
What is the Best Monitor For Your Smart Mirror?
If you want to build a smart mirror on a tight budget, the best monitor is one that doesn’t cost you anything. If you have an old LCD monitor you don’t use anymore, you can use it for your smart mirror. It will definitely serve for this purpose efficiently.
Any monitor will be suitable for a smart mirror. An HDMI connection is more preferable, but as you will see, it’s not essential for a smart mirror monitor.
Smart mirrors don’t require high-end monitors with high resolutions or refresh rates. A simple monitor with basic features is all you need. It’s cost-effective if done this way.
However, should you be looking to get a new monitor, I’d recommend the Scepter monitor based on low price, its size, and available ports.
With the Sceptre E205W-1600 19.5-Inch LED Monitor, you could build a beautiful Smart Mirror. This low-profile, 20-inch LED monitor fits easily into almost any space — at home, at the office, at the saloon, basically anywhere you’d like to set it up.
Its vibrant LED display delivers rich colors and sharp contrast so text and pictures come out crisp and clear. It also has an HDMI port which provides a quick and easy way for you to hook up your media player, game console or hardware technology in the case of building a smart mirror. Experience immersive and lifelike beauty with this: 20″ diagonal LCD screen
- 16:9 aspect ratio
- 1600 x 900 resolution
- Capable of displaying millions of colors
- Delivers exceptional performance that is especially noticeable when playing games and watching videos, amongst other uses.
Also, if you are interested in constructing a smart mirror with a larger frame,
You could go for a Spectre 40″ 1080p Monitor for $149 Or stick with the 20″ for just $79.95 – $99.95.
What Size Of Monitor Should I Use For My Smart Mirror?
The size of the monitor is the most important thing to consider when building your smart mirror. You have two choices with the monitor you use:
You can either make the smart mirror the same size as your monitor. This means if you use a 20″ or 40″ monitor, your smart mirror will also be 20″or 40″. The advantage of this method is that you can display any modules or content anywhere you want on the entire smart mirror within the boundaries of its frame.
Or, you can make the smart mirror bigger than the size of the monitor. For example, you might make your mirror twice the size of your monitor, and place the monitor on one side of the mirror.
With this method, you can display any content you want on one half of the smart mirror and the rest of the mirror acts like a regular mirror.
Best Monitor For Smart Mirror: My Recommendation
I’d recommend the first method as the best choice for fairly small smart mirrors. They’re easier to construct and it looks beautiful having contents across the entire mirror space.
The second method is perfectly fine for larger mirrors. For example, if you have a 55 x 30″ smart mirror, you could use a 21″ monitor to achieve the best smart mirror using this method.
Although, the monitor only takes up a small area of the mirror, you’d definitely enjoy the feeling of having plenty of space on your ‘smart’ screen.
In general, the size of the monitor you choose should depend on how big you want your mirror to be. The size of your smart mirror depends mainly on the location. This means that once you know where you want your smart mirror to go, you’ll be able to pick the right size for your monitor.
What Connection Does My Monitor Need?
Picture a Raspberry Pi-powered magic mirror touch screen. It is fast becoming common knowledge that the best way to power a “magic mirror on the wall” is with a Raspberry Pi. A Raspberry Pi has an HDMI output, so you’ll get the best results if your monitor has an HDMI input.
If your monitor doesn’t have HDMI input, you can probably still use your monitor without any issues. All you need is a small adapter to change from HDMI to whatever input your monitor accepts. There is a possibility that your monitor might not have an HDMI input if it’s a very old monitor.
The key point to remember is that even if your monitor doesn’t have an HDMI input, you can easily buy a cheap adapter to convert HDMI into any input your monitor needs.
What Features Should the Monitor Have?
Fortunately, the monitor you use doesn’t need to be fancy. You don’t need a high-end gaming monitor for a smart mirror. There is no need to get a 4k monitor, a high refresh rate, or a high-end monitor with high contrast.
Because, when you place a monitor behind a two-way mirror, most of the details are lost. A typical two-way mirror blocks around 70% of the light, so a high-end monitor will look essentially the same as a cheap monitor.
The only features to consider would be:
Brightness: can a monitor suitably adjust its overall brightness up and down? Essentially all monitors have this function so you shouldn’t need to worry about it. Adjusting the brightness level will allow you to configure in the perfect settings for your mirror.
Sleep/auto standby: if you feel a need to set up a motion sensor to turn your monitor on and off depending on the activity in the room, it’s good to know that the monitor you plan on using goes to sleep and wakes up. You don’t want a monitor that will go to sleep, but not wake up again when needed.
Power consumption: unless you set your smart mirror up to automatically put the monitor to sleep when not needed, it will consume power. While it won’t cost much to constantly run, it helps to use a low energy monitor. Many monitors make use of a low-power or eco mode to save energy, all you have to do is purchase one for yourself. We recommend that you give our pick for best monitor a try as it contains all the right qualities to give you the best smart mirror experience.
Heat: most monitors generate a lot of heat after a while, while others remain cold to touch. Ideally, your monitor won’t get hot after constant use.
Just so you know, you will probably want to remove the bezel(this encompasses everything on the front of our monitor that isn’t the screen), depending on the design of your monitor. Removing the bezel brings the display closer to the mirror, which will give a better result.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I Use a TV For My Smart Mirror?
Yes, you can use a TV for your smart mirror. The TV doesn’t need to be 4K or be a smart TV. Any basic flat-screen TV should work perfectly fine.
Although, monitors are preferable when constructing a smart mirror, (as you are about to find out), you can still achieve great results with a TV.
There are a couple of things to consider when using a TV as some of these features are great when using a TV normally, but they can cause issues when using the TV as a smart mirror, these are two different things:
Power saving mode: some TVs will automatically dim after a minute of no activity on the screen. This isn’t ideal for a smart mirror, which mostly, could have the same content displaying for hours without a change.
Note that, dimming is different from the monitor being asleep when not in use.
Therefore, it is advisable to check if your TV allows you to disable any automatic dimming or power savings mode.
Width: Go for newer TVs being produced as older TVs tend to be bulky, which makes the smart mirror stick out quite far from the wall. Newer TVs are quite slim and work well as a smart mirror.
Burn-in: smart mirrors tend to display the same content for quite long periods of time without change. With some TVs, especially plasma, this can cause burn-in where the image permanently affects the screen. This is why monitors are preferred, as they are designed to deal with unchanging content that are displayed over a long period of time.
Dynamic lighting: some TVs have the ability to dim the screen when there’s less content on display. You might have noticed this occurrence while watching a movie and the brightness of the end credits changes depending on how much text is on the screen. It looks fine when watching TV normally, but this can be annoying in a smart mirror. Most modern TVs should allow you to disable this feature
Black levels: some TVs don’t give a good black level. While you might not notice that the blacks aren’t true blacks when watching TV normally, it can cause problems in a smart mirror – especially if the TV is only used on part of the smart mirror’s area
Can I Use a Tablet For My Smart Mirror?
Of course, tablets work extremely well for smart mirrors. There are quite a few smart mirror apps you can download on your tablet right now and test out what it would be like to use.
Tablets are especially useful when you want to have a small mirror on a stand or hanging on a wall. The lightweight of the tablet tend to make it easy to mount the smart mirror to the wall.
Depending on how you construct your smart mirror, you may also be able to keep the touch function of the tablet and turn your smart mirror into a touch screen smart mirror. You should know that, constructing a touch screen smart mirror will definitely be an awesome feat.
Final Words
The best monitor is one that doesn’t cost you anything, Not needing to spend money on a new monitor means you can put money towards other features or better quality hardware.
Gone are the days when you sit idle at the beauty shop. Imagine getting a haircut in this scenario: everything looks the same, but they have smart mirrors installed instead of normal mirrors. Now, instead of waiting in your chair or poring into old magazines, you can browse a book of haircuts on the mirror in front of you. You can choose to either watch your favorite videos, read a book, watch movies or a TV series right on the mirror in front of you! All of these while sitting in your chair and with a remote control. This is a game-changer for most of the industries that have mirrors installed and is definitely going to be a crucial part of their business.
Ensure that you don’t buy an expensive monitor for your smart mirror project – get a cheap one for a start.
Reference:
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