.~~.   .~~.
  '. \ ' ' / .'
   .~ .~~~..~.
  : .~.'~'.~. :
 ~ (   ) (   ) ~
( : '~'.~.'~' : )
 ~ .~ (   ) ~. ~
  (  : '~' :  ) Raspberry Pi
   '~ .~~~. ~'
       '~'


Raspberry Pi 1 Magic Mirror


This will be updated as I write it on 27/06/2021!


I first created this mirror back in 2019 using a Raspberry Pi 1 and a custom built frame. Using an old laptop moniter and a screen driver bought off ebay and some 2-way mirror flim, I was able to build a mirror! (with help from my Dad!).


Mirror!


Using Python and tkinter I wrote a simple Magic Mirror GUI that displayed: time, weather (via DarkSky) and news (my own bash writtin script that curl headline news every so often). This worked amazingly and the 'magic mirror' effect worked really well!


DarkSky is now owned by Apple


So yeah... DarkSky used to be free and allow anyone to gain weather information easily (only 24 requests every day) in a nice easy-to-use .json format. Not anymore!


Restart


When this was first completed, I used RealVNC to interact with the Pi 1 via a USB WiFi Dongle but since restarting this project, neither VNC or SSH seems to work.


I am thinking that the WiFi dongle isn't working... this could be difficult...


Re-install Raspberry Pi OS


Just a simple clean slate in which I can enable SSH and WiFi (via the wpa_supplicant.conf file) on first boot. Instead of writing my own software, I am going to use MichMich's MagicMirror installer and software for ease of use!


MichMich's MagicMirror GitHub Page


SSH and VNC


Yes! I have SSH+VNC working on this Pi 1! The wifi dongle is working fine :). Now onto updating, upgrading and installing... on slow ass wifi...with one single core and 512mb of RAM... funnnnnnnnn...


Auto-install script


Yeah... gonna do the auto install scripts found:


here...


Sorry! Also it's taking foreverrrr to upgrade!


2 hours later... end results!


After some tweaking around inside the config files. I finally have a working magic mirror that is extensible and uses free weather api calls!


The poor Raspberry Pi 1 cannot handle this much processing power apparently! Takes about 5-8 mins to fully boot into the mirror software and another 2-3 mins to get the weather! On top of that, it runs at like 40% CPU all the time...oops!



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