Many of our products today are “smart” or have plans to integrate “smart” technology soon. Smartphones, smart TV, smart light bulbs – they have all become the global norm. A new project on Kickstarter aims to introduce a smart mirror known as MirroCool. This will not only serve as a fancy mirror but also offer personal assistant features. It sounds rather creepy, although it remains to be seen how this product will play out in the end.
MirroCool Has Plenty of Features
Imagine waking up and looking in the mirror to see if you are presentable to the outside world. Now imagine doing the same, but watching your mirror lay out your daily schedule. MirroCool is an intelligent and unique personal assistant which lives inside of your future mirror. That sounds very invasive to privacy, and in a way, it is exactly that. At the same time, such a smart mirror has tons of potential, since there will always be a market for such products.
The Kickstarter project has seen its fair share of success so far. Over 90 people have backed the project, which has already reached its initial funding goal of $50,000. The mirror costs at least $139 – without a frame, that is. Its retail price is expected to be around $299; thus, there is still a lot of wiggle room left for the price. Pre-ordering is clearly the cheaper option.
This smart mirror lets people manage their time more efficiently. Rather than having to check your phone, tablet, or laptop to check schedules, the mirror will do it for you. The mirror can also be used to take selfies thanks to its built-in facial recognition technology. It can serve as a “guardian” for the house when you are away from home since it can monitor whoever passes in front of it. Quite a useful tool if you use the MirroCool as a hallway mirror.
There is a degree of customization which will alleviate most privacy concerns. Users can turn off the mirror’s camera feed if they want to. The number of smart functions provided is quite limited and they connect only to the MirroCloud service. That is a nice feature, and it goes to show the company does not wish to invade consumer privacy.
MirroCool is capable of recognizing facial gestures, which helps it distinguish between registered users. There is no interface to worry about, as one just has to stand in front of the mirror to make it “smart.” The mirror also syncs with mobile devices and relays information such as weather conditions, emails, notifications, and so forth. A hands-free interface makes products like these a lot more fun to interact with.
That being said, users need to teach their MirroCool three different gestures. Smile, Wink, and Blink are the three ways one can interact with the smart mirror without relying on touch or voice communication. The company is also planning to release an API allowing other developers to create new applications for these smart mirrors.
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